Untouchable - Softcover

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Ava Marsh is a former newspaper journalist who lives in Battersea, London. Untouchable is her debut novel.



Ava Marsh is a former newspaper journalist who lives in Battersea, London. Untouchable is her debut novel.

 

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PRAISE FOR UNTOUCHABLE

TITLE PAGE

COPYRIGHT

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

CHAPTER FORTY

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER FIFTY

PROLOGUE

So, Grace,” he says. “Here we are.”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees. The breath catches in my throat and I swallow hard.

He knows my name.

He knows my fucking name.

“Why are you here?” I ask, struggling to keep any trace of fear from my voice. “What do you want?”

He smiles, finally, but it has no warmth in it. “I came to deliver something, Grace.” His tongue sliding over my name, caressing it.

“What?”

He raises his hand, and I flinch, but he strokes my cheek.

“A message from Michael.”

The hand drifts lower to my neck. He stares deep into my eyes, his features giving nothing away as his grip around me tightens, his fingers digging into my skin while his thumb traces the line of my throat. At the base, in the hollow where it joins my chest, he presses down. Not enough to stop my breathing. Just hard enough to make me very afraid indeed.

My pulse starts to sing in my head, and all I can feel is the constriction in my throat, this man’s breath on my cheek as he leans in and whispers three words in my ear. Three words like punches, like a kick to the guts.

“Michael says hello.”

ONE

THREE YEARS EARLIER

You expect more the first time you turn a trick. You hear about women who throw up the moment the client walks out the door. Some resort to hysterics, or the bottle. Others are overcome with remorse, resolving never to do it again.

In my case, nothing. He came. He came—eventually. And then he left.

Sliding the lock behind him, I felt no more than a vague sensation of having lost my virginity all over again. I walked into the bathroom and examined my face in the mirror above the sink. Searching, as after fumbled, hasty, anticlimactic sex at fifteen, for clues to what had changed.

Not much, it seemed. Same sleek dark hair, though underneath eyes more weary two decades on. The hint of a wrinkle I allowed to elude my focus, this not being the time for self-doubt.

So that’s that, I told my reflection. You’ve sold yourself for money. You’re a whore, Grace Thomas, a prostitute, a hooker, a harlot, a working girl.

I released myself from my own gaze, feeling slightly numb and slightly elated. I’d crossed the line and there was no going back.

Once a tart, always a tart. Another thing I’d never live down.

TWO

MONDAY, 19 JANUARY

Forget violent clients or venereal disease, the true scourge of working girls is tax returns—at least for those of us who bother to file one. How to describe your business, for instance? The get-out clause on every independent escort’s website—being paid purely for “time and companionship”—won’t wash with the Inland Revenue.

I opt for my standard evasion: personal therapist—vague enough to obscure the real source of my earnings, truthful enough to pass muster should anyone dig deeper. Grabbing my calculator and diary, I tot up my appointments. Three hundred and thirty-six hours at an average of £250 per hour gives me an income last year of . . . blimey . . . a gratifying £84K.

That’s before expenses, of course. I tap my pen against my teeth, trying to remember what I can claim for. Condoms and lube, certainly. Cost of website and updating photographs, yes. Taxi fares—probably.

But stockings? Clothing? Makeup? Brazilians? Vibrators? Batteries?

And how much for working from home? Assess how many rooms you use for business, suggests one website, and for what proportion of the day. Hmm. I see around half my clients as in-calls, here at my flat. So if I spend around seven hours a night sleeping in my bedroom and, say, an average of three or four a week fucking in it, what proportion does that make for business use?

And what about the lounge? If I screw someone on the sofa, does that count as using the room for work purposes?

The trill of my mobile cuts through my ruminations. I check the screen—a London landline. I answer on the fourth ring.

“Stella?” He sounds American. Or possibly Canadian—I can never tell the difference.

“Yes?”

“My name is Gerald. I wonder if you might be free this afternoon. For an hour?”

I think for a moment. I should really get this done—the deadline’s in a few days. “Where?” I ask.

“The Randolph Excelsior. Knightsbridge.”

I check the clock on my phone. It’s nearly one. “What time?”

“I was hoping two o’clock. Does that suit?”

Another set of calculations. An hour to finish this—or at least wrestle it into submission. Five minutes to eat. Ten to shower and run a razor over all the bits that count. Add ten to dress and slap on some makeup, fifteen to dash to Boots for more condoms, and at least twenty to get to the hotel.

“Three would be better,” I say.

He hesitates. “Three o’clock is too late. A quarter after two?”

I inhale, make up my mind. Tax dodging it is.

—

At exactly 2:15 P.M. I’m standing outside Room 759, savoring my last few seconds off the clock. And the anticipation. You never quite get over it, having no idea who’s about to appear at the door, knowing in just a matter of minutes you’ll be as intimate as two people can be. Suspense has proved an enduring aphrodisiac.

The door swings open to reveal a tall, slim man with an unexceptional face. Probably in his early fifties, judging by the lines around his eyes and the recession in his hairline. Though his teeth as he greets me are improbably white—I’m guessing he’s had them bleached.

Gerald Archer stands aside to let me in. I give the place a quick once-over. The room is larger than a standard suite, the bed flanked by two dark, solid bedside tables. The curtains and walls are all muted beige; even the art print on the wall confines itself to tasteful neutrals.

Meanwhile Gerald conducts his own evaluation, his face expressionless as he takes me in. I smile, but he barely responds, and I wonder with a slight lift in my stomach if this is going to be one of those occasions when a client gets cold feet. It happens sometimes. A crisis of conscience, perhaps, or...