The Orpheus Imperative

PROLOGUE
May 15^th 2005.

“Did you enjoy that?”

The girl couldn’t have been more than twenty-two or twenty-three years old, but her face was obscured by the semi-darkness of the stuffy little bedroom, and she was so heavily made up that one might have been forgiven, in the dim light, for assuming she was well into middle age. She leant coquettishly on one elbow, and twisted the sleazy, nylon bed sheets around her waist, leaving her chest exposed. The sheets crackled with static electricity as they moved. Her name was not important … names never were, in her line of work. Her calling cards, liberally distributed throughout the West End of London through the medium of the telephone box, identified her simply as Sam, ‘New in town. Call now for hot 1-2-1.’ And then there was a picture of a large-busted, blonde lovely clutching a whip.

“You were very special,” the client said, breathlessly.

Sam winked at him, batting eyelashes that should properly have been illegal, they were so long, and flicked on the bedside light. It was a cheap, faux-Oriental lamp, bought for twenty pounds up at the Portobello Road Market; an elephant, painted gold, rearing up on its hind legs, and balancing a bulb on the tip of its trunk which emitted a dim, orange light. To add insult to tastelessness, the lampshade itself sported a garish leopard-skin print.

A light breeze was rustling the curtains, which were drawn across the slightly-open window. But even the fresh air could not disperse the fumes of a hundred joss sticks, scented candles and the heady, almost overpowering smell of frankincense, mingled with the faintly hospital-like, clinical odour of Vaseline.

The client sat up in bed, the sheets falling around his waist as he did so. In Sam’s eyes, he was a handsome-enough young man. He was thin and superficially weedy, but his slight physique belied a strength uncommon in most of her clients, who tended to be forty-something businessmen. She wondered why he had wanted to hire her. Surely such a man would have no trouble pulling in any bar he tried. He had certainly been … interesting, she thought to herself, as she watched him retrieve a garish shirt from where it had been casually tossed on the floor. His flesh appeared yellowish in the light. He pulled the shirt over his head. They had not bothered to unbutton it, and then fumbled on the floor for the brown, new-looking leather jacket he had been wearing when he had arrived.

“You’ll want paying.”

“And I don’t take credit cards,” Sam said, smiling. “Of course … if you wanted to … try again … we could forego payment for an hour or so.”

“And that would cost me another fifty,” said the client wryly, pulling out a plush, designer wallet and extracting two new fifty-pound notes. “I should be getting home.”

“To what end?” Sam asked, plucking the fifties out of his fingers, and placing them swiftly underneath her ashtray. “Surely a fellow like you doesn’t have a wife and kids yet doesn’t have to get home that urgently. I’d say you were a free spirit. A man who goes where he pleases.”

The client turned to look at her, and for a moment, something flashed in his emerald green eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“Surely you aren’t so busy you can’t take a nice girl out for a drink,” Sam said.

“I never mix business with pleasure,” said the client.

“I bet you know some lovely bars,” she said, licking her lips.

The client bent forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“It’s been nice,” he said. “Thank you … but … no thank you. Look, here’s twenty more for the trouble.”

“No trouble,” Sam said … but she took the twenty anyway. “So you are to remain my handsome stranger, I see. Can I expect to see you in these parts again?”

“Possibly,” the client said.

“I shall look forward to that. Perhaps we can go out for a drink next time.”

“Hmm … perhaps,” the client said noncommittally.

He clambered out of bed and was in the process of pulling on his underpants when she spoke again.

“You’re very strange, you know.”

“How come?” the client asked, zipping up his trousers. He retrieved the leather jacket from the bed, checked for his wallet, and slipped it back on.

“You don’t talk.”

“Nothing to talk about.”

“Most of my special friends,” Sam said, as he sat back down on the bed to pull his socks on, “like talking. Most of them need to talk … I listen to them …”

“One of many services you perform, am I right?”

Sam nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “One of many specialised services,” she said, stretching languorously out across the bed, and casually letting the sheet drop to her hips, exposing the line of the flesh. “Are you absolutely positive I can’t tempt you for another go?”

“Positive,” said the client, scratching his head. “You wouldn’t want to hear me talk anyway. Mostly, I talk shite.”

“I’m sure you don’t. Do I detect a hint of Scots in you?” Sam asked.

The client laughed. “Welsh,” he said. “Welsh and Scots, actually.”

“I thought so … you make love like a Celtic man,” she said.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You have very nice eyes, too,” said Sam, not answering the question.

He turned to look at her. “Thanks … you’re not the first person to have commented.”

“You’re hiding something from me,” she smiled.

The client shrugged. “You’re a prostitute … I’m a client,” he said. “You expected me to pledge lifelong commitment to you?”

“Not exactly …”

“Good, because I’m commitment-phobic,” said the client. “I’m an emotional fuckwit. Mind if I smoke?”

“Go ahead.”

He turned back to her … his shoes were half laced up … cheap, battered trainers. From his pocket he withdrew a packet of Marlboros and a Zippo lighter.

“Want one?”

“It wouldn’t be very ladylike,” Sam said.

“Suit yourself.”

The client put the cigarette in his mouth, and leant forwards, cupping his hands to light it. As he did so, his fringe fell sideways.

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“That,” she pointed. So did the client.

“That,” he said, smiling, “is the mark of a killer.”

Sam laughed. “Hey … you’re cute and all … but you don’t strike me as the killer type, somehow.”

The client said nothing to this. It was true, though. He had the look of an innocent abroad about him. A young man who was not yet sure of his place in the world … innocent and vulnerable … the type who really needed a steady girlfriend, instead of a string of seedy hookers.

“So,” Sam said, humouring him. “Who’d you kill?”

“There’s no point in remembering it … there’s no point in talking about it,” the client said, a little acerbically. He took a long drag on his cigarette, and exhaled in one, fluid motion, sending wraiths of poison into the already-over-scented air.

“You obviously do remember it,” said Sam, suddenly anxious to learn more. “I think you want to remember it. Come on … people don’t just get scars across their foreheads like that …”

The client finished lacing his trainers. “I killed the woman I loved,” he said, turning his face away from her.

Sam laughed. “Yeah … right.”

“Right,” said the client.

He got up and crossed the room to the door, slid back the bolts and pulled it open. Harsh, fluorescent light flooded the room.

“I’ll call if I need you again,” he said.

Sam nodded. The client closed the door … and she never saw him again.
END OF PROLOGUE!
TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER ONE … THE SPANISH CONNECTION.