Hundreds of people were out, not nearly as many as the numbers walking Piccadilly Circus or Oxford Circus, but more than the number needed to make the street feel crowded. In the din of the afternoon children were out and about, playing on streets that smelled like piss and sex, the neon signs from the strip clubs high overhead. Men were on lunch breaks, some slipping into the narrow doorways that led to leased pleasure, some leaving those dens of satisfaction, checking their watches as they adjusted their white collars and black trench coats, heads down as they mixed in the crowd and hurried back to work, wedding rings untarnished. Children, vendors, women passing on bicycles, shop owners lining Berwick Street, all unaffected, none noticing or protesting the XXX video store that had pictures of hard-core gay sex in its windows, this world desensitized to prostitution and amoral acts. As was I. I had grown up like this, had lived in brothels from North Carolina to Montreal, had visited whores from Rio to Amsterdam.
I took out a picture I had in my inside pocket. Thelma and Andrew-Sven. Only her name was Catherine now. I had come back to the red-light district to knock on some doors. To talk to the whores who had been here over a year. I needed to talk to the ones who were here when Thelma first arrived with the boy. Thelma . In my mind she was still Thelma, even though she no longer used that name.
My heart knew her only as the woman who I had killed for, the woman who made me this way.
It remained a struggle to accept that she had shed the skin of a whore and become Catherine.
This was like being an archaeologist. I came to dig for answers to the past. I saw the edges of bones buried underneath a world of dirt, but I had to remove the dirt to find out what type of skeleton was being hidden. I wanted to ask those who knew her when she was here, find out if she’d arrived in London with the boy. Or without the boy. I had returned to the land of Charles and Camilla to ask questions.
Pinned to the dilapidated wooden doors, taped on the stained walls, all over the red-light district were handwritten signs advertising models. Russian models. African models. Polish models. French models. Asian models. Some here as part of the slave trade, their pimps in the avenue guarding the doorways. Some here because of the economics in their homeland, this being their best option.
They were all here to model— model being the euphemism whores used in the U.K.
A rail-thin girl appeared, cigarette in hand, her brows dark, her hair the same color. She was young, barely a woman. She stepped out into the street, her eyes on me.
The whore inhaled her cigarette and as she exhaled she asked, “Blow job or full service?”
Her accent was Yugoslavian, clothing simple jeans and trainers, her sweater modest and red. I followed her into the piss-smelling hallway.
I asked, “How long have you been working here?”
“Long enough to be better than the Africans. And I am better than the Asians. Come to my room and we can talk. No pressures. Tell me what you need and I will tell you how many pounds it will cost.”
With Death on my heels, I didn’t have a lot of fucking time.
I showed her a picture of Catherine and the kid. My bête noire and my life’s only concern.
She inhaled her cigarette, her expression not changing, my problems not being her problems.
I asked, “You know her?”
“Maybe I remember her.”
“Either you fucking remember her or you don’t.”
“My memory . . . sometimes it gets to be really bad.”
I pulled out three hundred pounds, the equivalent of six hundred U.S. dollars. The equivalent of more rubles than that Yugoslavian had ever made standing up or with her legs closed. Wanted to get to the point, didn’t have time to bullshit, not with trouble stepping on my heels.
“Don’t fuck around with me. Understand? You know her?”
“My memory, it is getting better now.”
“Fuck you.”
I turned around,