Strangers. Paul Finch

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      It had the desired effect.

      Two girls were waiting nearby, only half discernible in the dank shadows. One of them was black, one of them white; both wore leather jackets, short skirts and heels. They sauntered towards her side-by-side.

      ‘Who the fuck are you?’ the white girl wondered, her accent strong Scouse.

      ‘Who’s asking?’ Lucy replied, tucking the money up the sleeve of her mac.

      The black girl leaned forward menacingly, an impression enhanced by an old scar that diagonally bisected her mouth and was still clearly visible despite a preponderance of emulsion-like lip gloss. ‘What the fuck’s it got to do with you, you gobby bitch!’ she snarled. ‘This is our pitch and you’re fucking trespassing!’

      Lucy shrugged, but her spine was already tingling. ‘Don’t see a signpost, love.’

      The black girl snapped her hand out, and a gleaming blade sprang into view. ‘I’ll slice your fucking tits off, you cow!’

      ‘Or alternatively, you can pay up,’ the Scouse girl said.

      Lucy gazed from one to the other, affecting dimness. ‘What?’

      ‘We share everything here. And we know you’re not short of cash given that road crew you’ve just balled … so cough up.’

      Even from across the dual carriageway, Lucy heard a thud from the back of the Ford Focus, as if Clegg was already getting set to intervene. That’d be great. She could just picture him clumping across the blacktop in his army surplus trousers, hoodie top and baseball cap. He’d save her of course, but it’d be quite a coincidence – that the moment the new girl was threatened, a tall, dark stranger stepped in.

      But by a miracle, perhaps suggesting that he was smarter than she’d thought, he held off.

      ‘So I have to pay you two for the privilege of standing here?’ Lucy said. ‘On this stretch of public highway which anyone else can use free of charge?’

      ‘See,’ the Scouse girl said to her mate. ‘Told you she was clever.’

      ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Lucy said, suspecting they were bluffing but now knowing she had to call that bluff.

      ‘This look funny to you?’ The black girl offered the blade again.

      Though its glinting steel tip was now right under Lucy’s nose, less than an inch from severing her septum, she was determined to remain composed. That was all you could ever do in this job, pretend. It didn’t mean that, deep inside, her heart wasn’t going like the clappers.

      ‘Go on then,’ Lucy said. ‘Cut me up. I wonder what would make Mr Merryweather angrier? That … or the fact I had to share his hard-earned to buy you two off?’

      The two prostitutes didn’t exactly flinch, but the blankness of their expressions said more than words ever could.

      ‘You don’t work for Nick Merryweather,’ the Scouse girl finally replied.

      ‘Not directly,’ Lucy agreed, ‘but we know whose pocket you’ll ultimately be picking, don’t we!’

      She was onto a winner; she could tell. No one would believe that she had some kind of hotline to the Crew’s whoremaster-in-chief, but the mere fact she knew who he was would indicate that she was no novice, that she wasn’t just playing at this.

      ‘So go on, cut me!’ she urged them. ‘Or maybe you can put the sodding blade away … and just to show there’s no hard feelings, because yeah, I am trespassing a little bit, I can give you something to be going on with.’ She filched two twenties from under her sleeve, and offered one to each of them. Oddly enough, probably because this kind of thing had never happened before, they were hesitant to take them.

      ‘I’ve never seen you round here,’ the black girl said, still snarling, but the blade now lower. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

      ‘I’m Keira,’ Lucy said.

      ‘Keira?’ The black girl hooted. ‘Jesus wept, couldn’t you think of anything more fucking original?’

      ‘Who are you?’ Lucy asked her.

      ‘I’m not telling you my fucking name.’ The girl pocketed her switchblade, but snatched the twenty and backed away. ‘Just piss off, you silly fucking mare.’

      The Scouse lass gave Lucy a long, searching look – as if somehow suspecting this thing still wasn’t right – then helped herself to her own twenty, taking it almost gingerly between thumb and forefinger, before turning on her heel and hurrying to catch up with her mate, the pair of them dwindling off along the leaf-cluttered verge.

      Lucy watched them as she slowly calmed herself down, wondering if any kind of bridge had been built there or perhaps if it was quite the opposite.

      ‘You won’t make friends that way, love,’ a voice said from somewhere to the right, seeming to answer the question for her. ‘They’ll just mark you as a soft touch and try and scam you again.’

      Lucy turned to the trees and had to squint through the darkness under their half-naked boughs. The dull yellow glow of the streetlights didn’t penetrate too far. However, her eyes were now attuning, and she realised that a third party was close at hand. Another girl, younger than the others by the looks of her, with longish red hair and a very short dress, was seated on top of a picnic table, high-heeled shoes resting on the bench in front of her, as she swigged from a bottle of vodka.

      ‘And you’re not part of Necktie Nicky’s stable neither,’ she said, screwing the cap back on and giving a satisfied belch. ‘You wouldn’t dare give that much of his dosh away if you were.’

      Lucy ambled towards her. ‘I admit I’ve never met Mr Merryweather personally …’

      ‘No one has who’s so far down the food-chain that they have to walk these streets, love. Anyway, you can spare me the bullshit …’ The red-headed girl climbed down. ‘I know what you really are.’

      Lucy held her tongue, unsure how to respond.

      The girl slid the bottle into her shoulder bag, and struggled with the zip of her scruffy fleece jacket before finally drawing it up. She was shapely but short, not much more than five feet tall. There was no threat here, but the last thing Lucy needed was to be outed on her first night. She wondered what it was that might have given the game away.

      ‘You’re an independent, aren’t you?’ the girl said.

      Up close, even in the gloom, Lucy could see that she had a pretty face, though she smelled strongly of alcohol. If Lucy hadn’t been very used to it thanks to all the drunken prisoners she’d wheeled in over the years, it would have been nauseating.

      ‘And you’re new to the game,’ the girl added. ‘You know how I can tell? Because you haven’t got the thousand-yard stare. I’m Tammy, by the way. And that’s my real name too. I was christened Tamara. Can you fucking believe that?’

      It was an odd way to introduce herself; delivered in a casual, only half-interested tone, as if the information barely mattered.

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