Blood Lines. Grace Monroe

       Chapter Seven

      Even I didn’t believe that Tanya Hayder had changed her life around like she always promised she would. From time to time I checked on the website for the escort agency she was linked with, just to make sure she was still alive. Tanya’s official photograph on the Flowers of Scotland site still showed her in the first flush of youth. Before sex and drugs had taken their toll, she was the most alluring girl I had ever seen, apart from Kailash. Now, she looked at least double her age and with damn few years left. I often thought the trading standards officers could do her under the Trade Descriptions Act if they saw her advertising pitch.

      ‘Are you all right, honey?’

      That’s why I liked Tanya: she was the one behind bars but she was worried about my mental health.

      ‘You’re looking a bit peaky, Brodie. You under any stress?’

      I rolled my eyes upwards and she understood.

      ‘You can’t let those bastards grind you down – you’re better than that,’ she continued to try and calm me. ‘We go back a long way, Brodie. Don’t bail out on me now because of some stroppy bastarding men getting to you.’

      I never needed to tell Tanya anything because she always assumed it was ‘bastarding men’ who were behind anything and everything. Occupational hazard, I suppose. But she was right – we did go back a long way. Tanya was my first client, I’d had little else to do and so I lavished more care and attention on her than a firstborn. Tanya had been a heroin addict since the age of thirteen, chasing the dragon to escape memories of childhood abuse, which were unfortunately not suppressed. She was a real dripping roast in the early years – her constant appearances in court made her a good source of income for me – but I always supposed (or hoped) that she would escape her destiny. During one interview in Cornton Vale Women’s Prison, she had handed me a white gemstone. I didn’t want to dwell on how she’d managed to smuggle it in.

      ‘It’s faith,’ she had told me. ‘The stone represents faith.’

      I’d taken it from her all those years ago and still had it in my purse. Foolishly, I believed that as long as it was safe, we both had a chance.

      ‘We don’t have long, Tanya, you know the form.’

      ‘Enough that I know you’re in bigger shit than me. Where were you when they called my name out?’

      ‘A victim of my own success, Tanya.’

      ‘Get me out of here, Brodie – I can’t do another stretch. Please, Brodie, I promise you this time I’ll straighten myself out, just get me into rehab.’

      ‘Tanya, I told you last time that I got you the deal of the century – probation with your record? And what did you do with that great chance? You shagged a police officer – how many times have I told you not to have any drugs on you when you’re on the game?’

      Drugs were an illness with her; she was more to be pitied than punished. I knew that with Tanya I overstepped the mark, but someone had to care. The Fiscal claimed to understand when she was a Crown witness at the age of twelve, but where was the therapy or stable home when she needed it? Now, her background reports sounded like tired old tosh trotted out by lawyers and social workers, although it didn’t make it any less true.

      ‘I did not. I always double-check with the hotels to make sure they’re not the vice squad. This gadge had a suite so I thought I was safe – vice are too tight to take a suite. Anyway, when I got there it was a police officer, they had ordered a few working girls to entertain some business colleagues so I thought it was okay. I’ve got some scruples, I didn’t go with the pig, I went with the pal. Nice black guy. I could tell he was using because his top lip was covered in sweat. He paid me in smack – it was good stuff and I was hoping he would ask for me again but I never got the chance. That pig booked me for drugs. I tried to tell them I got them from their pal but they wouldn’t believe me. Said his pal was a fisherman from Pakistan, but that was a lie ’cause I used to work the boats in Peterhead and all the men there have rough hands and he didn’t. Really rough hands. They get them from mending the nets.’

      ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I cut her off as quickly as I could. There was always a story with Tanya. ‘You were caught with drugs. There is not going to be a trial. You’ll be sentenced for your original offence today and for the breach of probation. It’s not your first offence so they don’t need social enquiry reports – you’re off to prison this afternoon, Tanya, for a long time.’

      As I said them, I thought my last words were unnecessarily hard. They were true, of course, but there was no need to kick her when she was down. Apparently, Tanya thought so too.

      ‘Who were you with, when you should have been representing me?’ she asked angrily.

      ‘You wouldn’t know him.’

      ‘You’d be surprised who I know. Must be somebody important to make you abandon me.’ She liked to twist the knife. Most addicts are experts at emotional blackmail.

      ‘I bet it was one of those Dark Angels – you seem to be Moses Tierney’s personal tart these days.’

      I ignored her insults, but she went on.

      ‘Get me probation and I’ll give you information that will help your client. I don’t need to know who he is just now to know that I’ve got a link to practically everybody in this city – and information on most of them.’

      ‘There’s no way I can get you probation today, Tanya, but I will try.’

      I ignored the line she was throwing me about the Alchemist. I would have put up a good spraff for her anyway, regardless of the personal cost.