Shifting Skin

Chapter 11

Take a few moments to browse through our selection of handpicked ladies. Prices start at £150 per hour.

Fiona stared at the computer screen. Jon was right: all the girls were listed there. She read a few of their details.

Becky, age 19. Holly, age 20. NEW! Kim, age 20. Mel, age 22. The list went right down to women in their forties. By each name was a tab saying, More info.

Fiona clicked on Mel’s.

A new screen popped up giving the girl’s height, bust, dress size, hair, ethnic origin and occupation (5’6”, 34C, 10, brunette, shoulder-length straight, white British, customer service adviser).

At the base of the screen was a subheading, Reviews. Fiona clicked on it and was taken to a different page called ‘Punter Opinion’. The report was enthusiastic but matter-of-fact, like a review of a well-designed electrical item. The punter would definitely be seeing Mel again, it concluded.

Appalled at the commercial sophistication of the process, Fiona went back to the main listings page. She scanned down the column of names; the word ‘NEW!’ was by about a quarter of them. The girls obviously came and went fairly frequently. Alexia could easily be an ex-employee.

Trepidation made her hesitate as she reached for her mobile. But all-too-familiar feelings of guilt flared up in response, and with them a determination to find out if Alexia was OK. Knowing she couldn’t live with herself if she did nothing, she slowly dialled the number at the top of the screen. A woman answered almost immediately, her voice warm and attractive.

Fiona wasn’t sure what to say. Suddenly, the words were coming out of her mouth. ‘Hello. I’d like to speak to someone about working for Cheshire Consorts.’

‘What’s your background, love?’ The voice had lost some of its pleasantness and become more matter-of-fact.

‘Well, my name’s Fiona. I work as a beauty therapist, specialising in manicures. I’ve also done a course in Swedish massage, but that was some time ago. What else? Um, I enjoy going out to the theatre when I-’

The woman cut her off. ‘You’re new to this, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘How old are you, Fiona?’

‘Late thirties. Thirty-eight.’

‘That’s OK. Some of my busiest escorts are your age.’ A small crumb of encouragement; Fiona’s spirits lifted. ‘Why don’t you come and see me?’

‘I’d like that.’

The address was a house in Mellor. Fiona had heard of the area. Big houses at top prices. More expensive than where she used to live. She closed Hazel’s computer down, then went to the kitchen. ‘Cathy,’ she said, nerves making her stomach feel light and empty. ‘Could I borrow some make-up, please?’

A short while later she was driving along the M60 ring road. She turned off on to the A, following it all the way to Marple Bridge and the turning for Mellor. The road was narrow, leading through a pretty little village, antiques shops dotting the high street.

The road went up a hill and Fiona spotted a pub called the Royal Oak. She parked outside it as instructed and looked across the road to number 133. It was a large semi-detached house with a wooden front door. Nothing remotely seedy or dangerous about it. Crossing the road, she knocked a couple of times and waited on the steep stone steps. The door opened to reveal a woman about her age with an immaculately cut brown bob. She wore hardly any make-up and the skin was stretched tight over her cheekbones. Slightly sunken eyes looked down and her thin lips parted. ‘Fiona?’

Conscious of the generous layer of concealer masking the worst of her injury, Fiona smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘Come in. First room on the right.’

She stepped past the woman, sensing that she was being assessed. She sat down in a pleasantly decorated front room. Although it was homely, something was missing. Fiona looked around. No family photos.

The woman sat down in a leather chair by a corner table which held a computer, printer, boxes of disks and other business gear. She surveyed her visitor. ‘My name’s Joanne Perkins. What happened to your face?’

Fiona lifted her fingers to her eyebrow. ‘Some trouble with my ex.’

‘Fiona, I don’t send girls out with damaged faces. The men pay a lot of money, so they expect some class.’ Her eyes shifted to Fiona’s borrowed shirt and too-large skirt.

Fiona coughed self-consciously. ‘To be honest, I’ve just left my husband. I didn’t have time to pack much. These aren’t my clothes.’

The phone rang. Joanne held up a finger at Fiona, then picked it up. ‘Cheshire Consorts…Yes, that’s right, sir…Whereabouts are you?…The one at the airport?…What sort of time?…And who did you have in mind?. . Victoria? Oh, she’s lovely, she really is.’ She turned to the computer, clicked the mouse a couple of times and consulted the screen. ‘I think she’s available. If I can I take your telephone number, I’ll get Victoria to give you a call.’ She jotted a number down. ‘And your name is?…OK, Gerald, you two have a chat, and if you like the sound of each other I’ll call you back to confirm the booking. Is that all right?…Lovely. Do you have a credit card?… No, don’t give me the details now. Wait till I call you back, OK? Victoria will ring you shortly.’

She hung up, consulted the screen again and dialled a number.

‘Victoria? It’s Jo. Can you do a booking at the Radisson, Manchester Airport, for ten o’clock tonight?…He sounds fine — salesman I imagine…OK, he’s called Gerald. Here’s his number.’ She read it out and hung up. Turning back to Fiona, she said, ‘Now, you’ve just moved out?’

‘Yes.’ Fiona blinked, shocked at how prosaic Jo made selling sex seem.

‘Your life’s just been turned upside down. You need cash.’

‘No,’ Fiona protested. ‘Well, yes. Things are all different. But-’

‘I don’t take on people who are going through stuff like that.’

‘I’m sorting myself out.’

‘Could you stand up?’

Slowly, Fiona did so. Her hands fluttered nervously and she had to make a conscious effort not to fold her arms. They hung at her sides, feeling awkward. She looked at a point on the wall well above Joanne’s head.

‘You aren’t at all comfortable about this, are you? Somehow I don’t think you really want to work in this business.’

Fiona’s shoulders relaxed. ‘No.’ Gratefully, she sat down again.

‘I’m looking for a girl. She’s gone missing.’

‘You’re not the only one.’ Joanne’s lips tightened to a thinner line, and she lit a cigarette.

Fiona nodded awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry. It was me who asked the police to ring you.’

Joanne took a sharp drag on her cigarette, shadows deepening beneath her cheekbones. ‘Is this girl your daughter?’

The question caught Fiona off guard and a sudden image of Emily caused her eyes to sting. ‘No. She was in the next room of a motel I was staying at. I heard something terrible happening to her. Like she was being strangled. I checked her room the next morning, but all I found was one of your cards with her name and a mobile phone number written on the back.’ Joanne’s face darkened at the news. ‘I really want to know what happened to her,’ Fiona concluded.

The phone went, and Joanne picked up. ‘Cheshire Consorts

… Hi, Victoria. You’re happy with it, then?…Yeah, I thought he sounded quite nice, too, and he offered his credit-card number straight off. . OK, I’ll ring him to confirm it.’ She called the man back. ‘Gerald? Hello, it’s Cheshire Consorts. Victoria would be delighted to meet you at ten o’clock. If I could take your credit card details, we can confirm the booking. I gather that you agreed an hour with Victoria, so the charge is £150. OK, the name on the credit card is?’ She took the rest of the details down. ‘Thank you for using Cheshire Consorts, Mr Richmond, and I hope you enjoy your night.’

She replaced the phone, looked at Fiona and took another drag.

‘No one of her name has ever worked for Cheshire Consorts. I checked after that pushy detective called. I turn away a lot of girls who’d like to work for me. Usually ones with drug habits

— they’re unreliable and they’ll try and give their own phone numbers to clients to cut me out of future deals. I’ve been in the business long enough to spot them and I’ve worked harder than you can imagine to be where I am today.’ She waved a hand towards the window and the pleasant surroundings beyond. ‘I’ve got here because I only employ real ladies. Now, I don’t know how one of my cards came to be in that motel room, God knows, there are enough men around town who use my escort agency. But I did have someone in here calling herself Alicia a while back.’

Fiona frowned. ‘Sorry, you mean Alexia?’

Now Joanne looked confused. ‘No, she said she was called

Alicia, and that copper said Alicia, too, unless I misheard him.’

‘You must have done. It was definitely Alexia written on the back of the card,’ Fiona replied, wishing she hadn’t given it to Jon.

Joanne sighed. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was Alexia, then. No one of that name has worked for me, either.’

‘How can you be sure without checking?’

Joanne said impatiently, ‘Because I help them choose their working names.’ She pointed to a Perspex container of business cards. ‘After the interview I noticed half my cards had gone.’

‘Why would she take your cards?’

‘Trying to gain a bit of credibility, I’d imagine — at the expense of my business’s reputation. The best place you can start searching for that little bitch is back where she crawled from.’

Fiona raised her eyebrows questioningly.

Joanne stood up. ‘She claimed she was working the massage parlours. I’m fairly sure she said the Hurlington Health Club. You know where that is?’

Fiona shook her head.

‘Just past the Apollo on the A57. You can’t miss it. All the windows are blacked out, for a start.’

Fiona ignored Joanne’s movement towards the door. ‘What did she look like?’

Joanne sighed. ‘Skinny little thing — a good sign she was using. About your height, late teens, early twenties. Hair darkish brown. Down to about here.’ She held a hand to her collarbone.

‘She was still pretty, not for much longer. The bruises round her eye certainly didn’t help.’

‘Bruises? Someone had been hitting her?’ Fiona asked with dismay, imagining the wretched life the poor girl must lead.

An indifferent shrug. ‘Goes with the territory, that end of the market.’

Fiona almost felt sick, acutely aware that Emily would have been roughly that age now. She held the image of the girl in her mind’s eye as she finally stood. ‘Thank you. And sorry to have wasted your time.’

Joanne looked her up and down. ‘Listen, when your face has cleared up and you’ve got your own clothes back, call me.’

Fiona stared at her, unsure of what she meant. Realisation struck and she quickly made for the door.

By the time she got back to the outskirts of town, it had gone ten o’clock. The information Joanne had given her burned in her head. The Hurlington Health Club. A skinny girl with dark brown hair, around twenty years old.

The desire to find her dragged Fiona towards the city centre and she found herself driving along the A57 towards the Apollo. A few minutes later purple neon lettering caught her eye. The Hurlington Health Club. It was halfway down a short row of shops, sandwiched between a place selling antique fireplaces and another selling second-hand furniture. The doors and windows of both shops were concealed behind grey metal pull-down shutters.

She eased into a lay-by and looked across the road. The front of the Hurlington Health Club had been returned to something resembling a residential, not business, property. A terracotta pot holding a miniature conifer stood on either side of the front door, and in the front garden a tiny fountain sprinkled water, lit mauve by an underwater light, into a small, square pond. She peered more closely at the windows. The curtains, of red material which had the heaviness of velvet, were open, but even so it was impossible to see inside. Joanne was right: there was an inner layer of glass and it had been blacked out.

Nervously, she checked in her rear-view mirror. There was no traffic coming. She climbed out and crossed the road. The front gate was open; water tinkled into the square pond. A small sign on the door read: Open 11 am until late. All major credit cards accepted.

Fiona took a deep breath and walked quickly towards the door. It opened and a man stepped out, buttoning up his coat. Their eyes met and his immediately moved down to her chest. He stared with no attempt at subtlety.

Fiona shrank back, bumping into the gatepost. He realised she wasn’t coming in. The look that came into his eyes reminded Fiona of her husband before he punched her. He moved towards her and she turned and scuttled back across the road to her car.

Once inside she locked the door. He sauntered off towards the small car park by the Apollo. Her eyes turned to the front door again. She couldn’t go in now, not at night. Any visit would have to be during the day when, she hoped, the place would be quieter.