Girl Seven by Hanna Jameson Page A

gun: it was the only weapon you could defend yourself against other guns with.
    It was still and clammy and silent outside. I kept sweating.
    Every so often I’d think back to reading Noel’s emails and feel like shit, even though our perverted sex triangle was the least of my problems. The last time I was feeling this down Noel took the day off work and took me to an art gallery.
    It had been a novelty to be taken anywhere in public. Not that I’d minded...
    I sat up, sick of my thoughts and wondering if I had any sleeping pills.
    My phone rang.
    It was five past three and the Caller ID said ‘Mark’ .
    ‘Aren’t you concerned about waking me?’ I answered.
    ‘Well, if you were asleep you wouldn’t answer. You don’t sound very tired.’
    I shrugged. ‘No, no I’m not tired. What are you calling about?’
    ‘Are you free for a prison visit at some point?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Can you come with me to a prison sometime?’
    ‘Um... Well, yeah, I work evenings. Wha—?’
    ‘Nothing’s set in stone yet but I’m waiting on the name of the kid that shot the Williams boy. Even if his death is unconnected I thought it wouldn’t hurt to double-check, and I thought you might want to come if you want to stay informed about everything?’
    I couldn’t help smiling. ‘And the perfect time to call and ask about this is three in the morning?’
    ‘I just got home, I don’t keep regular hours like you working girls .’
    ‘OK.’
    He paused. ‘You sound sad.’
    ‘Well, my... family were killed in this machete incident. You might have heard about it?’
    A dark laugh. ‘Fine, but if you have any reservations about what I’m doing, I’d really like you to tell me. It’s your job, not mine.’
    ‘No, I’m fine.’
    I thought about asking him about the Russians. He did work for some, after all. But I was still too shaken by the day’s events to talk about them. If I told him about the Russians Mark might find himself with a conflict of interest and decide to pull out.
    I cleared my throat. ‘Call me tomorrow if you end up going to the prison.’
    ‘Have you ever been to a prison before?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Fascinating places, from a strictly anthropological point of view. Brings out the base instincts in people. I’ve heard prison guards take bets on arranged fights and then “accidentally” fail to lock up certain cells. Something about uniforms, or cramped hierarchical environments.’ A pause. ‘I’ve never been asked to go after someone inside a prison before, but sometimes I plan how it might go... for the challenge.’
    ‘Mark... It’s three in the morning.’
    ‘Sorry. Point taken.’
    I rubbed my eyes. ‘Thanks.’
    ‘Sleep well,’ he said, before hanging up.
    I was alone in the room again.
    There was no point staying awake all night chewing my lips to shreds so after a while I turned the light out and went to sleep.
    I couldn’t help wondering if the Russians had planted some­thing in the flat to watch me. It seemed plausible: plausible enough an idea for me to torture myself with. But at that moment I couldn’t be fucked to look.
    I wasn’t sure that I loved Noel, not properly. Not in the way that people were meant to love and care about each other, but the one time I thought I might have done was when he took me to the art gallery.
    It was the National Portrait Gallery. Lucian Freud. He walked me around, not because he particularly liked art, but because he knew I did. It was the only time he ever really deviated from his routine for me.
    ‘Had an eye for the larger lady,’ he remarked.
    ‘He liked the way they moved.’ I tried to put it in a way that he would understand. ‘Look at the skin; there’s so much texture in the different shapes, so much shade. It’s much more interesting than a skinny human body. It’s like a landscape.’
    He pulled a face. ‘I know you’re into this kind of thing, love, but you know... this guy was almost certainly a massive raging sex