The Madam

‘Here’s to your new life,’ Scar said, raising her glass to mine. ‘May it be long and happy.’

‘Right on,’ I said.

We clinked our glasses, and I felt a wave of affection for my former cellmate. She was the most considerate person I’d ever known. Her real name was Donna Patterson, but inside she was nicknamed Scar for obvious reasons. She told me that she didn’t mind because it gave her an air of mystery. But I knew it was a lie. In truth the scar bothered her, just like it would any woman. It disfigured an otherwise beautiful face, and unfortunately no amount of make-up could conceal it.

I drank some more champagne and savoured the chill that swept through my insides. For a brief moment I felt like crying. It welled up suddenly, and I had to fight it back. Now wasn’t the time to react to the emotional impact of what was happening.

So I cleared my throat and said, ‘So tell me what you’ve got.’

Scar, bless her, had come prepared. She had known that I’d want to get straight down to business, that any celebration would be muted and short-lived.

She took a notepad out of her handbag and flipped it open. But before reading from it she cocked her head on one side and looked at me. The scar was more pronounced as the light through the window set off the ridge of red, gnarled skin.

‘Are you sure you want to go down this road?’ she said.

‘We’ve had this discussion,’ I pointed out.

‘I was hoping you might have changed your mind.’

‘Well I haven’t.’

Scar took a deep breath, and said, ‘Fair enough. Just don’t tell me later that I didn’t try to stop this madness.’

The thing was I had to start somewhere. There was no game plan as such. No obvious clues to follow up. I only had a bunch of names and a list of unanswered questions. But it would have to be enough. If I could just stir things up then maybe I’d get a result.

I’d spent four years going over it in my mind. Bracing myself for the day when Lizzie Wells would embark on a new career as an amateur sleuth.

Scar was right, of course. It was madness. I really had no idea what I was doing, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me doing it. I’d waited too long for this.

‘Let’s start with the flat you asked me to rent,’ Scar said. ‘As you know I’ve taken a one-bedroom place on a six-month lease, all paid up front. It’s in a part of Southampton called Bevois Valley. Nothing fancy, but it’s tidy and decently furnished.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘I know the Valley. It’s where I used to live.’

‘I’ve also made a reservation for tonight at The Court Hotel. Room eighty-three. The one you wanted. Check in any time after two o’clock today. I didn’t tell them we’ll only be popping in and out.’

She reached into her handbag and took out a mobile phone.

‘As requested. It’s a pay-as-you-go smartphone. High-end model.’

I took the phone from her. It was slim and metallic grey.

‘Your number will show up in the display window when you switch it on,’ she explained. ‘I’ve put my own number in the contacts list.’

She then flipped over the first page of her notebook. ‘I checked up on the four names you gave me. They’re all still living in Southampton, which is what you suspected.’

‘Right, so let’s start with Ruby Gillespie.’

Scar took a sip of champagne and leaned forward across the table. Her breath smelled yeasty and sweet.

‘Ruby is still doing the same old shit,’ she said. ‘But I gather business is not as brisk as it used to be. There’s more competition from other escort agencies in the city and she’s found it hard to recruit new girls. That’s partly because the drink problem you told me about has got much worse. Word is she’s now an alcoholic and taken her eye off the ball.’

‘It was on the cards,’ I said.

‘The address you gave me near the Common checks out,’ Scar said. ‘She’s still living there by herself, and the house doubles as a brothel at times.’

I’d first met Ruby Gillespie at that very house after responding to one of her newspaper ads. A curvy brunette with dark Mediterranean features, Ruby was actually more attractive than most of the girls who worked for her. She exuded a charm that was natural and an air of sophistication that was not. I liked her at first and I was taken in by all the talk of being part of ‘a big happy family’ and having her full support if ever I got into trouble.

But when I did get into trouble she threw me to the wolves like a piece of stale meat. She refused to answer my calls while I was being held, and then in court she appeared as a witness for the prosecution. She claimed I’d once told her that I always carried a knife in my bag for protection. It was a lie, but the judge believed her.

She was on my list as I wanted to know why she said that.

‘Who’s next?’ I said.

Scar flipped over another page.

‘Detective Chief Inspector Martin Ash. He’s still with Southampton police.’

‘And he’s been promoted since he put me away,’ I said. ‘In those days he was a lowly DI.’

‘Well he’s an ambitious bastard,’ Scar said. ‘It didn’t take me long to find that out. People don’t mess with him. Or like him much.’

Ash and DCI Neil Ferris had been the arresting officers in my case. I remembered Ash as being a snappy dresser in his early forties, with a pot-belly and a florid complexion. He was also an arrogant bully.

DCI Ferris was a sinewy figure who was less arrogant and more sympathetic. I wondered if that was because he was the father of two teenage daughters. He mentioned them a couple of times during those gruelling interview sessions. Said he prayed they wouldn’t turn out like me.

‘I don’t believe your story about what went on in that room,’ he’d said just before they charged me. ‘But I also don’t believe that you’re a cold-blooded killer. Therefore I’m willing to accept that you got involved in a brawl with Benedict. So if you cop a manslaughter plea we won’t pursue a murder conviction.’

Ferris had made it sound like they were doing me a favour. My lawyer had urged me to go along with it. Told me I faced a stark choice. Plead not guilty to murder and face an almost certain conviction based on the evidence. Or plead guilty to manslaughter and claim that I stabbed Benedict in self-defence when he got violent, even though I couldn’t recollect how it had happened.

‘Look at it this way,’ Ferris had said. ‘If a jury finds you guilty of murder it’ll be life. If you go down for manslaughter you could be out in four or five years. That’s not the end of the world. And having got to know you a little I’m sure you can handle it.’

He’d been right. I had managed to cope. But ironically the period after my trial had proved more of a struggle for Ferris.

Something happened to make him kill himself. My lawyer sent me a copy of Southampton’s local evening newspaper, The Post. On the front page was a story about how detective Neil Ferris had jumped off a railway bridge into the path of a train. His wife, Pamela, was quoted as saying that she had no idea why he did it, and he didn’t leave a note.

That night I lay on my bunk feeling sorry for his wife and daughters. But I wasn’t able to dredge up any sympathy for the man himself.

‘Do you plan on seeing Ash?’ Scar said.

‘Of course.’

‘What makes you think he’ll talk to you?’

I shrugged. ‘No reason why he shouldn’t.’

‘So what do you think he can tell you that you don’t already know?’

‘Maybe nothing, but he might be able to shed light on a few things that have bugged me.’

I drank some champagne and glanced out of the window. The rain had stopped, and the sun was trying to force itself through the cloud cover. A lump rose in my throat again. I still couldn’t believe I wouldn’t be sleeping in that dingy cell tonight.

‘Anne Benedict has moved house,’ Scar was saying. ‘I gather it happened soon after the trial. She’s now living in Eastleigh on the outskirts of Southampton. Both her sons have moved out so she’s by herself.’

Anne Benedict. The distraught wife of the victim. As she’d stared at me across the courtroom the thing that had struck me most had been her blank expression. What I’d expected to see were eyes filled with hate, but instead they were just devoid of life. That, I thought at the time, seemed strange. The Post – for whom her husband had worked – had described them as a close and happy family. But of course that was crap. Happily married men don’t pay for sex with prostitutes. I was keen to talk to the widow to find out what, if anything, she knew about what had happened.

‘Finally we come to Joe Strickland,’ Scar said. ‘He is a prominent Hampshire businessman with a few million quid to his name.’

Strickland’s name had come up during the investigation because a few weeks earlier he had made threats against Rufus Benedict. The reporter had made an official complaint to the police, and Strickland was given a verbal warning.

There was no question that Strickland would have been the prime suspect if the evidence against me hadn’t been so overwhelming. Benedict, The Post’s long-serving investigative reporter, had been probing Strickland’s business activities and was apparently close to publishing a story about him involving large-scale criminal activities, including corruption of local government officials. But the article was never written because Benedict was stabbed to death.

‘I’ve got Strickland’s address,’ Scar said. ‘He lives in a big detached house in an upmarket part of the city.’

‘Is he married?’

‘He’s got a wife and daughter. The wife’s name is Lydia and she runs one of his companies. The daughter lives with her boyfriend in London. He made his money as a property developer and now has his hand in lots of local pies, some of them illicit by all accounts.’

‘I’m looking forward to talking to him,’ I said.

Scar furrowed her brow. ‘Do you really think he’ll be up for it? He’ll probably tell you to fuck off.’

‘But I won’t,’ I said.

‘Then he’ll have you arrested.’

‘I doubt it.’

‘Then maybe he’ll have you killed.’

‘Now that would be an admission of guilt.’

Scar rolled her eyes and filled my glass. I swigged back the last of the champagne and said, ‘Thanks for helping me out on this. You’ve been a gem.’

‘To be honest it’s been fun,’ she said. ‘It beat looking for a full-time job as soon as I got out. And it’s put me back in contact with some old friends on the coast.’

Scar had been released from prison two months earlier after serving four and a half years inside for cutting off the testicles of the man who raped her and disfigured her face. It was yet another example of cock-eyed justice, and it made my blood boil. The judge took a dim view of the fact that she went to the man’s house, broke in and attacked him while his wife was out shopping. But he accepted there were extenuating circumstances and was lenient when it came to sentencing.

Scar was no stranger to Southampton, having lived most of her life in neighbouring Portsmouth, where she long ago established a reputation as a bit of a tearaway. So when I’d told her what I planned to do she’d offered to help – after first trying to talk me out of it.

She got a part-time job serving behind the bar in a club and agreed to do some legwork for me when she wasn’t working. I gave her access to one of my accounts in which I had some money stashed. That in itself was a mark of how much I trusted her.

‘So are you ready to head south?’ she said.

I put my glass down and stood up unsteadily.

‘You’ve got me drunk,’ I said. ‘But it feels good.’

Scar smiled up at me and reached for my hand. Hers was soft and warm.

‘Do you want to go straight to the hotel?’ she said.

I shook my head. ‘First I want you to take me to the cemetery.’

The champagne had gone straight to my head, but I was determined to stay awake during the ninety-minute drive to Southampton. The sun finally penetrated the cloud cover, turning it into a glorious day.

Fields rolled away into the distance on either side of the M3. Traffic whooshed and hummed and the sound of it was strangely soporific. Lorries the size of small houses. White vans weaving from lane to lane. Brake lights flashing on and off. Overhead gantries issuing threats and warnings.

It all became a blur to me as I sat back and listened to Westlife oozing out of the car’s speakers. As we drove past Basingstoke, Scar asked me about some of the inmates we’d left behind, especially Monica Sash who, like me, was serving time for a crime she didn’t commit.

‘She wants me to clear her name after I clear my own,’ I said.

‘Eh?’

I shrugged. ‘Told me her family will pay me a pot of money to get her out.’

‘Jesus. Was she joking?’

‘’Fraid not. I told her she was being daft, that there wasn’t anything I could do.’

I recalled the conversation and couldn’t help but smile.

‘I’m not a private detective, Monica,’ I’d said. ‘I’m a convicted killer and former prostitute.’

‘But you’re going after the people who framed you, Lizzie. And I think you’ll find them. You’ve got what it takes. And when that’s sorted you can do the same for me.’

She’d been serious too. Had managed to convince herself that I was her last chance. I shook my head at the memory of those pleading eyes and turned to Scar.

‘So what’s it like to be free?’ I asked.

She said she’d felt lost on her own at first. After the years inside it took time for her to feel comfortable and safe again in the big, wide world. We talked about the bar work she’d been doing in Southampton. The money was poor but at least it meant she didn’t have to sit around by herself in the evenings.

‘I’m not working tonight or the rest of the week,’ she said. ‘So we can party.’

We didn’t talk about our relationship and where it would go from here because we weren’t ready for that. I needed time to adjust to being on the outside and Scar needed to be patient. She knew I was confused so she wouldn’t push me into making a decision. She’d want me to be sure about my feelings and about what I wanted. Scar meant the world to me and it was going to be tough when and if the time came to break her heart.

As we neared the south coast I began to experience a flutter of nerves in my stomach. It felt strange to be heading back to my home town when I no longer had a home there. Before I lost my freedom I’d rented a two-bedroom flat close to my mother’s house in Northam. That was gone along with the furniture I’d managed to accumulate.

I didn’t bother asking my mother if I could move in with her and my brother, Mark. She would only have said no. Ours had always been a tumultuous relationship, and what happened while I was in prison had made things worse. It was a shame as I missed my little brother, and I knew he missed me. He didn’t visit me inside, but he did write me letters. They were short and sweet and barely discernible, but they meant a lot, and I’d kept every one of them.

We reached Southampton in the middle of the afternoon. The city lies between Portsmouth and Bournemouth and is just a few miles from the New Forest. It has several claims to fame, including the fact that the Titanic sailed from its huge port on its first and last voyage. Strangely, the good people of Southampton find that something to be proud of.

The cemetery was on a hill overlooking the Solent, that stretch of wind-lashed sea so loved by yachtsmen that separates the mainland from the Isle of Wight.

We parked at the entrance and Scar said, ‘I’ll wait in the car if you want to be by yourself.’

‘I’d like you to come with me,’ I said.

We strolled up the path with the Solent on our right and the city sprawled out on our left beneath the warm afternoon sun. Much of the cemetery was overgrown. It looked abandoned. A jungle of rampant weeds had grown up between the headstones. There were dead flowers on top of dead people.

Leo’s grave lay in the shadow of a willow tree. The headstone was small and simple. The inscription read: Here lies Leo Wells – a much loved son and grandson who left our world before his time.

My baby died just over a year ago, and they let me out for the funeral. It was a devastating experience. I remembered standing at the graveside between my mother and brother as the coffin was lowered into the ground.

‘This is your fault,’ my mother spat at me. ‘If you hadn’t chosen a path of debauchery my little Leo would still be alive.’

Her words had burned into my heart and added to the weight of my loss. And I couldn’t really disagree with her. It might have been cruel of her to point it out to me at the funeral, but she’d been right nonetheless. Leo died after contracting meningitis. Two months before his fourth birthday. I was sure that if I hadn’t been locked up it wouldn’t have happened. I wouldn’t have let the doctor send him home after deciding he had nothing more than a simple headache and prescribing Calpol. The inquest was told that if he had been admitted to hospital and put on antibiotics he would have survived.

The guilt was an agonising pain I had to live with, and I bore a heavy sense of shame and self-loathing.

But Leo’s death wasn’t entirely my fault. Whoever framed me was, as far as I was concerned, even more culpable. He, she or they had killed my little boy. And I wasn’t prepared to let them get away with it.

‘Are you all right?’ Scar said.

‘I’m fine,’ I lied.

There was a bunch of pink roses on the grave. They were slightly wilted, but still vibrant, and had no doubt been put there by my mother. I knelt down and told my son that I was back and that I was sorry I’d been away for so long. Hot tears welled up then, and this time I didn’t try to stem their progress.

I sobbed uncontrollably for several minutes while clinging to the headstone. I wanted to dig down into the earth to be closer to my son. I wanted him to feel my warmth. Instead I just let the grief work its way through me.

Eventually I got to my feet and dried my eyes. I felt Scar’s hand on my shoulder.

‘This was always going to be tough, babe,’ she said. ‘But you have to be strong if you want to find the bastards who were responsible for what happened. And I want you to know that I’ll be with you all the way.’

The Court was a four-star hotel that catered mostly for business types. It was less than ten years old and had been built overlooking a park in the city centre. The reception area hadn’t changed much. It was still cold and colourless.

We checked in and made our way up to room eighty-three on the third floor. Scar held my hand going up in the lift. She could tell I was anxious. My breathing suddenly became laboured and my stomach began to curl inside itself.

The corridor had a new carpet. The walls were lined with sepia prints of Southampton before German bombs ripped into it during World War Two. They too were new additions.

Scar inserted the key card in the lock, stood back to let me go in first. The moment I stepped through the door it all came flooding back with alarming clarity.

The room had been refurbished since that night, but everything was familiar. Bed, TV, sofa. All in the same places. The colours and shapes were different, but not the feel of the place.

Scar closed the door behind me and I had a sudden vision of Rufus Benedict lying on the bed. Blood everywhere. The knife on the floor.

I rushed into the bathroom and threw up into the toilet. The regurgitated champagne made my eyes water. I stayed there for a few minutes retching into the pan, sweat prickling my face. When I went back into the main room Scar poured me a glass of bottled water from the mini bar.

‘Drink this,’ she said.

It was cold and refreshing, but it failed to wash away the taste of vomit.

‘It must be weird coming back here,’ she said.

I sat on the edge of the bed and looked around. Saw myself in the mirror above the dressing table. Not a pretty sight.

I’d had to come back. Reliving that night was part of the process I knew I had to go through. It was necessary to remember as much as possible.

‘Talk me through it,’ Scar said.

She was sitting opposite me on the sofa, a can of Diet Coke in her hand. She’d removed her jacket, and I noticed she had a new tattoo. The name Lizzie was scrawled across her right forearm, and there was a red heart beneath it.

‘I got a call from Ruby that evening,’ I said, casting my mind back and feeling at once the sharp stab of bitter memories. ‘One of her regulars wanted someone new. I had to turn up at the hotel at eight and come straight up to the room. That was pretty much how it worked most times. All very straightforward.’

‘And businesslike,’ Scar said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And businesslike.’

I’d actually been an escort for five months by then and I told punters to call me The Madam because I thought it had a saucy ring to it. The money was good and having sex with strange men wasn’t as bad as I’d feared it would be. It was usually over very quickly, and the guys were mostly decent and polite. There was the shame and guilt, of course, but it was something I was prepared to live with.

After all, I’d started selling my body out of desperation, not because it was a chosen vocation. I was a single mum with a pile of debt and an addiction to soft drugs. It was an easy way to resolve my problems, or so I thought. The plan was to save enough money to pull myself out of the mire and secure a better life for myself and my son. But that’s not how it worked out.

‘Rufus Benedict opened the door in a hotel robe,’ I said. ‘He was a middle-aged guy with bad breath and a big belly. But he seemed harmless enough. We talked for a bit and just as we were about to get started there was a knock on the door. Benedict put on his robe and answered it. Outside the door there was a bottle of chilled champagne with a note saying it was with the compliments of the hotel.’

Benedict was all smiles as he popped the cork and filled two glasses. He told me to undress and sat there sipping at his drink as he watched me remove my clothes to soft background music. I’d developed a well-practised routine that was designed to tease and titillate. My clothes came off with slow precision as I licked my lips and ran my fingers gently over every inch of uncovered flesh.

‘It all gets a little hazy after that,’ I said. ‘He took off the robe and asked me to get him aroused, which I did.’

Scar was trying not to show her revulsion. I’d told her the story before, but never in so much detail. She looked away briefly and bit into her bottom lip.

‘We eventually moved to the bed,’ I said. ‘But nothing more happened because Benedict was suddenly struggling to stay awake and couldn’t even keep it up. I felt tired too and a little giddy. Then I heard someone’s voice and realised we weren’t alone in the room. I turned round and saw that two men had let themselves in.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Well, everything was distorted so I couldn’t make out their faces. Then I saw one of them attack Benedict and when I started to scream the other one put a hand over my mouth and pulled me down onto the floor. I could barely breathe. It was terrifying.’

Scar put down her Coke and came and sat beside me. She placed an arm around my shoulders. I was trembling.

‘Take it easy, babe,’ she said.

I downed some more water and said, ‘I took a blow to the forehead then and everything went blank. When I came to I was covered in blood and Benedict was lying here on the bed. He’d been stabbed once in the chest and he was dead. The murder weapon was a knife I’d never seen before and my prints were on it.’

I closed my eyes and recalled the awful sense of panic that had consumed me.

‘What did you do?’ Scar said.

‘I couldn’t stop screaming. Before long there were people knocking on the door. When I finally managed to open it I was so worked up that I fainted. The cops arrived and I was arrested. As far as they were concerned it was an open and shut case.’