She’d seen her cousin Jimmy Junior downstairs behind the bar, where he worked tossing cocktails and flirting with the girls. He’d shot her a puzzled grin, clearly wondering what she was doing here. She was wondering that, herself.
‘Your mum told me to expect you,’ said Ellie, kissing Layla’s cheek.
‘Hi, Layla,’ said Chris, Ellie’s big, ugly but good-hearted husband, taking her overnight bag. ‘Come on in. Hey Tone. Keeping OK?’
‘Fine,’ said Tony, bringing up the rear. ‘You?’
‘Yeah, not bad.’
‘Let me show you your room,’ said Ellie, and Layla followed her with a heavy heart along a plainly decorated hallway. She thought how noticeable it was, the difference between the opulence of the tiger-skin-and-gold club downstairs and the austere magnolia neatness of the upper floor. But Annie was right – this place was thick with muscle, guarding the door, monitoring the safety of the girls who worked here. The club was tight.
‘Here we go,’ said Ellie, opening a door.
They entered a room with a double bed, dressing table, wardrobe and a small TV. Chris placed her bag on the bed, then withdrew.
‘Loo’s just across the hall there,’ said Ellie, flinging back the curtains to let the sun in.
Layla went and peered out of the window. Below, there was a busy road lined with parked cars. Downstairs there was glamour, luxury, champagne on tap. Up here, there were no fancy trimmings. But it was neat and clean. Ellie showed her along the hall to the office, the monitor room, the girls’ dressing room.
‘It’s like bloody Fort Knox, this place,’ said Ellie with a smile. ‘Nice and secure.’
Layla nodded. She knew that Ellie had once run a far more down-market establishment in Limehouse. A knocking-shop, not to put too fine a point on it. Since then she’d gone up in the world.
‘Did Mum tell you what happened?’ asked Layla, when they’d returned from the grand tour and Ellie was bustling around, making sure everything was in order in the bedroom.
Ellie was a big woman, stocky in middle age and comfortable with it. She wore flattering business skirt suits in peacock blue, red and purple, no accessories. It was the red today, and it suited her. She dyed her hair a fetching mid-brown and kept it tucked up neatly in a chignon. Her nails were short and well manicured. Her skin was as clear as a twenty-year-old’s, her manner confident and smiling.
‘Annie told me there’d been a bit of trouble and she wanted you out of it,’ said Ellie. ‘That’s all.’
I am standing in a room over a lap-dancing club, thought Layla morosely.