The Make

She hung up and stared at the phone for long moments. She felt annoyed and tainted, as if she’d been touched by something unpleasant. Then she dialled out. Brynn picked up straight away.

‘Hello?’

‘Did you give a girl called Sandy my number?’ asked Gracie, breathing hard.

‘She phoned just after you’d left. Said it was urgent family business. Normally, of course, I wouldn’t give out your number, but after the cops called about your brother and—’

‘Never give out my number. Not to anyone. Got that?’

‘But she said she was his fiancée.’

‘I don’t care if she’s Nefertiti, the last of the sodding pharaohs, I don’t want my private number given out.’

‘Okay, if you say so.’ He sounded surprised and hurt. Brynn was her ally, her number one man; she never shot her mouth off at him.

‘I do say so. Remember it.’ Rattled, Gracie slammed the phone down.

Then she went into the bedroom, stripped off, pinned her hair up and headed for the en suite to shower the day away. She stood for a long time under the soothing heat of the needle spray, her mind blank; then she soaped up, rinsed and dried off, pausing before the big slab of mirror to brush out her hair.

Gracie stood there for a moment scrutinizing her reflection. She looked tired, but otherwise not bad. As always, she wished she was half a stone thinner and half a foot shorter, a little less statuesque, but there it was, shit happened. She was more Jessica Rabbit than Kate Moss, but so what? She had the luminous white skin that went with being a redhead, and a thoughtful don’t-fuck-with-me expression in her cool grey eyes. She had long since developed a style all of her own and she knew how to present herself to the world – mostly in neutral-toned crisply fitted shirts and sharply tailored suits. She had large breasts – all her own – a small waist, and richly curving hips. Definitely not Kate Moss.

‘Ah, you’ll do,’ she told her reflection, and slipped on a cosy grey cashmere vest and pants before heading for the kitchen to stare in the fridge.

She hadn’t eaten since early afternoon and now she was hungry. There was some pasta there, and a little tomato sauce. She’d heat it up, eat in front of the TV with a glass of wine, and she wouldn’t think about her estranged family, not for an instant. She put the pasta and sauce in a pan and a plate in the oven to warm, then went over to the door and picked up the post. She took it back into the kitchen and put it on her tray with a knife and fork, a bottle of wine and a glass, salt and pepper.

When the pasta was done, she took the tray into the sitting room and aimed the remote at the TV, settling down with a sigh. She ate her meal watching the latest disasters in the world on the twenty-four-hour news channel, sipped the wine, and began to feel almost human again.

She reached for the post and started to sort through the junk mail and the bills. She spotted something that looked vaguely official – and then the name jumped out at her. Her stomach clenched, the pasta swirling in her guts, and for an uneasy moment she felt as if she might throw it all back up again. It was from a county court, and there was the name, the one she always half expected to see or hear but rarely did, these days. She had stopped using that name soon after the separation.

Connolly.

And there was his name too. Lorcan.

Shit. They were divorce papers.

Happy Christmas, Gracie, she thought, and she stared at the papers and fought down a most un-Gracie-like urge to cry.

George and Harry (#ulink_ea1ffdeb-50e1-576a-a53d-7c819fe513fb)

OCTOBER

Chapter 3 (#ulink_39bb507a-1b06-5f3e-8bc2-4039275eac78)

It had all started out so easily. Harry and George were chilling in their rented flat. They had ordered in pizza, they had beer, they were sorted. They’d watched the match and then a cheesy old Richard Gere film had come on. As the action unfolded they were paying it scant attention. They were busy moaning on about how they were always skint.

George was bored with working as a dealer at Lorcan’s place, but what else could he do? And Harry was Job Seeking, only not really. They had few qualifications between them, and it was George’s firm opinion that they were screwed from now until they fell off the twig at ninety. Well, sixty more likely. But it would feel like ninety years had crawled by, because the whole damned circus was going to be such a long dull pain in the arse. And there was Richard Gere, being a gigolo on the screen. Humping beautiful girls and – for God’s sakes! – getting paid for the privilege. George liked the ‘getting paid’ bit. As for humping the girls, well, he could do it. He wasn’t crazy for it like Harry was, but as Tina Turner so rightly said, Keep your mind on the money.

‘We could go for that,’ said George idly.

‘For what?’ Harry was yawning, nearly ready to turn in. He had to go and sign on again tomorrow – what a fucking treat.

‘Being a thingy. You know. A gigolo. Boffing the birds for money.’

Harry burst out laughing. ‘You what?’

‘Look, the girls do it, don’t they? Escort work? Guys do it too. And it’s safer for guys. They make major money.’

‘Oh sure.’

‘Damn right I’m sure.’ Now George was sitting up straight, and there was that mad light in his eyes that he always got when he had a bright idea. George’s bright ideas had landed Harry in a lot of trouble over the years, involving him in gang fights, territorial disputes, all sorts of shit, so Harry was starting to feel a little nervous. He’d come this close to getting a knife shoved between his ribs once, and he wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.

But still . . . escort work.

Maybe George did have something there.

‘I could set up a website,’ said George. ‘We could get some cards printed.’

‘Maybe,’ said Harry.

‘Oh come the fuck on, Harry, it’ll be a laugh,’ said George, grinning. ‘You got anything else going on?’

Harry shook his head. ‘No, but . . .’

‘Well then.’

‘I don’t want any trouble, George.’

‘Trouble?’ George was wide-eyed and innocent. ‘This’ll be like taking candy from a baby. No trouble involved.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well . . .’

‘Oh come on. Let’s do it. Okay?’

Harry started to smile.

‘Okay,’ said Harry, and they high-fived. Harry was con fident that George would forget all about this conversation by the morning. He was drunk as a skunk. They both were.

But George didn’t. Morning rolled around and George was still talking about his escorting idea. He was on a roll.

By the end of that week, their website was no longer a drunken dream in George’s head: it was fact. And before long they had booked their first client, and then, in quick succession, came their second, their third, their fourth . . .

‘Christ!’ laughed George, his eyes dancing as he playfully waltzed his younger brother around the room. Their tenth client had just booked. ‘Look at this, boy. We’re going to be minted!’

Chapter 4 (#ulink_f602e622-2c4a-500a-af17-218b6363fcc4)