Sins (32 page)

And then just when her panic was at its height and she was on the point of pleading with him to simply get it over with, the image inside her head changed and became instead that of her aunt Amber, smiling tenderly at her, holding out her hand to her, protecting her.

Arthur Russell gave a grunt of frustration at the barriers between him and his goal. ‘What the ruddy hell are you wearing?’ he demanded before starting to yank at the liberty bodice with his free hand.

Liberty bodices were, as Rose knew, anything but liberty providing, and not easily removed. He would need both hands and even then it still would not be easy. And that meant he would have to release her…

Josh had been waiting for Rose for over half an hour. She was never late. The pub was packed, it being Christmas Eve, heaving with bodies and a sense of cares being thrown aside in favour of celebrating the season. Outside it was freezing cold and he was knackered. One of his stylists had thrown a full-on dramatic hissy fit with one of the juniors on whom he also had a massive crush, and had ended up walking out, which had meant that Josh had had to take on his clients as well as his own. The air inside the pub surrounded him with a relaxing fug of warmth and cigarette smoke, making him reluctant to move from the table he had managed to bag when he had first come in.

But Rose was now very late. He knew she had been working at the Russells’ and that was enough to have his nerves firing on all cylinders. He reached for his overcoat, a new one, bespoke, made by his father’s friend
Harry Cohen in his Savile Row shop. It was black and made from pure cashmere, and he’d made poor old Harry almost weep when he’d demanded that he cut it into such a narrow fit, but Josh was well pleased with the result. He was wearing handmade shoes as well–both the coat and the shoes a Christmas present to himself. The salon was starting to make proper money for him, and it would make more. Josh grinned at the pert-looking blonde eyeing him up as he squeezed past her. He liked to change his girls as regularly as he changed his shirts; that way none of them got any silly ideas about tying him down. Josh had ambitions, big ones, and they didn’t include getting married and ending up with a wife and half a dozen kids to support. He’d already started to get one or two girls coming in who hung around with the new singers and groups whose records were in the music charts, and once they’d got into the new year he intended to try to persuade Ollie to let him cut the hair of one of his many model girlfriends–one who was likely to be photographed for
Vogue
.

The air outside the pub was ball-shrinkingly cold, the sky clear and studded with stars. Josh knew the address of the Russells’ mansion flat. It was a good half-hour’s walk away, but there wasn’t a taxi in sight. Not that that bothered Josh. He liked a challenge. The Dorchester was the nearest posh hotel, so he headed for it, using a small rear entrance and then making his way to the foyer, strolling through it and out past the uniformed doorman, who asked politely, ‘Taxi, sir?’

Josh just managed to suppress his grin of triumph when the doorman hailed one of the cabs waiting for
the Dorchester’s wealthy clients. It was worth the tip he’d had to give the doorman just to be inside the warmth of the taxi instead of outside on the freezing cold street.

It didn’t take the cabby more than a few minutes to reach the Russells’ address. After telling the driver that he wanted him to wait, Josh headed for the entrance.

Initially the doorman was reluctant to answer him when Josh asked him if he’d seen Rose, but when Josh pointed out to him that if, as he suspected, she was being held in the Russells’ flat against her will and Josh had to report that to the police, he gave in.

‘Arrived about half an hour ago,’ he told Josh. ‘But no one forced her to go in. Knocked on the door, she did, and then went in herself.’

‘I expect you’ve got a spare key for emergencies and that,’ said Josh in a friendly manner.

‘’Ere, I can’t give you no spare key. Lose me job, I would, if I was to do that.’ The doorman looked and sounded anxious.

‘Then I’ll just have to help myself to it, won’t I?’ Josh told him cheerfully, adding, ‘Don’t worry, I did a bit of boxing when I did my national service. I’ll make sure to give you a good pair of black eyes and a broken nose as well, if you like. That should convince everyone that I had to take it from you.’

The doorman’s hand was trembling as he removed the key from the bunch on the heavy key ring he took out of his trouser pocket, and handed it over.

‘Thanks, mate. I’d scarper for a few minutes now, if I was you.’

The doorman didn’t need any urging, already disappearing in the direction of a flight of stairs.

She had escaped from him, but for how long, Rose wondered, shaking with fear as she stood trapped in a small space close to the windows, behind a sofa. Arthur Russell had picked up a ruler that had been lying on a coffee table and now he stood in front of her, bringing it down lightly on his own open palm whilst he watched her with a look that made her skin crawl.

‘Now I really
am
going to have to punish you,’ he warned. ‘You need to learn some important lessons. I should have thought that a girl like you would have known better than to make me angry.’

Rose looked desperately towards the door.

‘You can’t keep me here like this,’ she warned him with a bravado she was far from feeling. ‘When Mrs Russell returns—’

Her words made him laugh out aloud.

‘Don’t bother wasting your time pinning your hopes on her. She won’t be back until gone midnight and by then, my little lovely, I’ll have had what I want, several times. I should warn you that my tastes are rather unconventional, and that deliciously shaped little rear end of yours has been tantalising me since the first time I saw it. Ever had it that way before? Some girls don’t care for it, but I can tell that you aren’t that sort. Goes with the breeding. Everyone knows that the girls in Hong Kong are the best in the business.’

Horror crawled through Rose’s veins. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Josh sometimes joked about the sexual
practices of the homosexuals who worked in the salon, she suspected that she wouldn’t really have known just what it was Arthur Russell was referring to. She certainly hadn’t known that it was something that men did to women, and the thought filled her with fear and nausea. She tried frantically to dart past her aggressor but had to retreat back behind the sofa when Arthur Russell swiped out at her with the ruler, bringing it down against her hand with a stinging blow.

If the bastard had put a safety chain across the door then he was stymied, Josh acknowledged as he slid the key into the lock. But to his relief, the door opened easily, allowing him to step into the hallway with its over-ornate décor. Several doors opened off the hall and Josh approached them each in turn, listening carefully outside them, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he heard the sound of a male voice on the other side of a pair of double doors.

Rose didn’t know which of them was the more surprised when the doors to the drawing room were suddenly opened by Josh.

‘Josh,’ was all she managed to stammer with relief as she was finally able to dart past her gaoler whilst his attention was focused on Josh.

‘Thought I’d better come and get you, seeing as you didn’t turn up for our date,’ he mock-chided her.

‘What the devil’s going on?’ Russell was demanding. ‘How the hell did you get in here? Neither of you is going anywhere. I’m calling the police.’

‘Good idea,’ Josh agreed affably, whilst Rose tensed,
terrified that somehow Arthur Russell might have the power to convince the police that
they
were the wrongdoers and not he.

‘I’ve already tipped off a mate of mine that works for the
Express
that I might have a juicy story for him all about a certain businessman,’ Josh continued. ‘The wife know about your little hobby, does she, ’cos if she doesn’t she soon will.’

‘You’ll be sorry for this,’ Russell warned Josh. ‘I’ll make bloody sure of that.’

He came at them with such speed, his fists bunched, that Rose was sure they would both end up trapped, but somehow Josh managed to push her out of the way and then sidestep Russell, turning round to raise his own fists and then deliver a blow that had Russell gasping in pain and clutching his middle as he sagged towards the floor.

Josh looked at him. He was sorely tempted to deliver a blow to the fallen man that would ensure it was a long time before he wanted to go near any woman again, but he was conscious of Rose and the need to get her away to safety, so with some reluctance he left his opponent and went to Rose, telling her firmly, ‘Come on. I’ve got a cab running up a bloody fare that will cost me a fortune.’

Just the sound of Josh’s voice somehow alleviated the horror that had gripped her. They were outside and in the taxi almost before Rose could draw breath. Once she had, she began to tremble so violently that Josh had to put his arm round her.

‘I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’ve done for me, Josh, never.’

‘Course you will. You wait, some day someone will
come along and it will be your turn to help them. That’s how it works, see, you pass it on.’ He was only trying to help her back to normality, she knew, but for Rose the words had a resonance that burned deep inside her.

‘And I will do that, Josh,’ she told him passionately. ‘I promise.’

His arm around her shoulders was warm and comforting, and he hugged her closer. ‘I know you will, Rosie.’

Instinctively she leaned closer into him. Dear wonderful Josh, who made her feel so safe.

Then a new fear struck her. ‘I’m so glad you came, Josh, and so very grateful to you, but I’m scared for you as well–after what Mr Russell said about paying you back.’

‘You don’t need to be. It was just talk, that’s all.’

Josh sounded so confident that Rose didn’t want to pursue the subject, but she couldn’t help worrying and she just hoped that Josh was right.

They were in Sloane Square now and the taxi had stopped. They both got out. The cold wind made her face sting where Arthur Russell had struck her. From the old church on Sloane Street, the sound of carols reached them in disjointed wafts of sound, a few familiar words here and there. At home they had always gone to the midnight carol service at the small church nearby. Tears stung Rose’s eyes.

‘You OK?’ Josh had reached for her hand and was squeezing it reassuringly.

‘Yes, thanks to you.’

The Christmas lights twinkled and danced, the square and the King’s Road beyond it both busy.

‘I doubt that we’ll be able to get a table in the pub now. It will be standing room only.’

‘Yes.’

‘Want me to take you back to your place instead?’

Rose’s immediate shudder gave him his answer. ‘There won’t be anyone there.’ She couldn’t face the thought of being alone. It was, she knew, silly to be afraid that somehow Arthur Russell would track her down, but she was still too close to what had happened for logic. ‘Perhaps if I were to go to Euston I might be able to find a train that will get me back to Macclesfield.’

Josh looked at her. Poor bloody girl. Thank God he’d been born male, he decided.

‘OK,’ he announced, having come to a decision. ‘Come on.’

‘Where are we going?’ Rose set off down the King’s Road, keeping her hand firmly within his own.

‘My place,’ he told her. ‘You’ll be safe there.’

‘It’s Christmas Day.’

Josh looked at his watch. It was ten minutes past midnight. ‘So it is,’ he agreed.

They were in his flat, warmed by the gas fire. Rose was curled up on the battered old leather chesterfield he had ‘found’ in a skip, and wrapped up in the eiderdown off his bed after the bath she had told him she needed to make herself feel clean again. Now she was drinking the medicinal cup of cocoa heavily laced with brandy, which he had made for her.

Since the bathroom was shared with the other tenants and did not possess a lock, Josh had gallantly stationed himself outside it whilst she had bathed.

‘But what do you do? I mean, how do you stop other people coming in?’ Rose had asked him.

‘Whistle,’ Josh had informed her. ‘If you can hear someone whistling you know the bathroom’s occupied. Works fine but it’s tricky when you’re cleaning your teeth.’

‘I expect your family will be waiting for you,’ Rose told him sleepily now, ‘with it being Christmas.’

Josh was sitting cross-legged on the frayed Turkish rug on the floor. He got up and smiled.

‘I’m Jewish–remember. We don’t celebrate Christmas.’

‘Oh!’ Rose flushed and then laughed. She felt strangely light-headed and relaxed, and not at all as she felt she ought to feel in view of what had happened. Being here with Josh made her safe and warm and cosy, and as though she never wanted to be anywhere else.

‘Sleepy?’ Josh asked her.

Rose nodded.

‘Come on then. I’ll do the decent thing and sleep on the floor so that you can have the bed.’

Josh’s bedroom was small and almost filled by the double bed, a bed that smelled familiarly of Josh himself, Rose thought tiredly as she curled up beneath the covers and closed her eyes.

The floor and the sleeping bag Josh kept for emergency guests were not exactly conducive to sleep, so he was awake several hours later when Rose cried out, her panic and fear plainly audible.

He normally slept naked but, in deference to Rose, on this occasion he had kept on his underpants. The lino was icy cold on his bare feet as he made his way to the bedroom, the light he switched on waking Rose out of her nightmare.

‘I was dreaming about Mr Russell,’ she told Josh. She shivered. ‘I don’t want to go back to sleep in case I start dreaming about him again.’

Josh looked at her. ‘OK,’ he decided, ‘move over.’

Rose did so, too relieved at the thought of having his company to worry about any impropriety.

Josh had switched off the light and was busily making himself comfortable, thumping the thin pillow and voicing a variety of grunts as he settled down. They were comforting sounds, just as his warmth was a comforting presence.