A Proper Charlie Read Online Free PDF Page B

me.’
    ‘ Sure, hun. Anything.’
    ‘ Core is throwing a party next Saturday, and I want you to come with me,’ she said quickly.
    ‘ I’d love to,’ he said.
    ‘ Really? You hate my work friends.’
    ‘ But I love you , hunbun.’
    Charlie grinned misty-eyed at him. ‘It’s a fancy dress. I’m going as Ginger Spice.’
    He grinned back. ‘I’ll go as Beckham. We could be a celebrity couple.’
    Charlie frowned. ‘Honey, I think you’re mixing up –’ but he wasn’t listening. He’d pulled out his mobile and was busy pressing buttons. She kissed his cheek instead and spun happily on her heels. She headed back into the kitchen to retrieve her handbag. ‘Phone me when it’s safe to come home, OK? And Andy?’
    He dragged his gaze away from his phone. ‘Eh?’
    ‘ Three hours tops.’
    ‘ Sure,’ he said, his attention dropping to his mobile as his thumb moved over the keypad.
    Charlie put on her shoes, and picked up her jacket. ‘I’ll be at Mel’s,’ she said.
    ‘ We’re on!’ Andy was saying into his phone, and Charlie doubted she was heard.
    Back in her car she headed to Melvin’s house he shared with Dean across Walworth, but at a roundabout she suddenly had a change of heart. Turning right she headed towards Soho, the so-called red-light district.
    She parked up outside a closed estate agents’ and sat in her car. The streets were busy with late night shoppers and early-night revellers.
    She chose Soho, not because of its reputation as London's red-light district – which was old-fashioned and no longer deserved – but because she knew the area well as she, Melvin and Dean often visited the pubs and clubs.
    She could see a couple of women loitering in a shop doorway and concentrated on them. Every now and then they’d walk towards the kerb edge as if to show any passing car they were available. If men walked past they’d smile and try and engage them in a conversation, if women passed they’d slink back into the darkness of the doorway. They didn’t seem bothered by the fact a murderer might be on the loose.
    Charlie pulled her note pad out of her bag, keeping an eye out for traffic wardens as she was illegally parked, and made notes on how the prostitutes acted and dressed. She watched them for a while until one of them climbed into a car of a middle-aged man and was driven away.
    Dropping her notebook on the passenger seat, she moved off and came alongside the remaining woman. She looked in at her curiously as Charlie wound down her window.
    ‘ This might sound like a strange request, but I’m trying to find a woman for my, er, brother for his, er, twenty-first.’ Oh, Lord she sounded like a weirdo. ‘How much are you?’
    ‘ I’ll do him for fifty. Straight sex; nothing pervy, that’s extra.’ Her eyes moved beyond Charlie, and back again, and Charlie had a strange notion that the woman knew she was lying and tittered as if to confirm it. ‘You can watch for free, love,’ she said, and Charlie’s face flamed.
    Charlie rolled up her window and drove off as the woman laughed after her.
    Skimming the A40, Charlie used the back streets to get to Camden Town. She got stuck behind a taxi in Monmouth Street, but was able to watch the women unhindered as they hung around lampposts or telephone boxes touting for illegal business. There wasn’t many. It was still early, she supposed, and checked her watch. Barely ten p.m., and most hookers wouldn’t venture out until much later. Tomorrow night, she promised, she would come back properly armed with recording equipment and get some interviews on foot. The idea seemed perfect. She would get a fly on the wall view of working women surviving in an already hostile world.
    She drove slowly, probably annoying the hell out of other drivers, making mental observations to be jotted down later when she had her hands free.
    She wondered if Andy had finished his ‘deal’. She checked her mobile, but nobody had called. Pulling over into a