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“Your family own a national property business, not a dynasty.”
“Try telling my dad that.”
“Maybeyoushould,” she said. “Don’t hide under a rock all your life complaining you can’t see the sun. It’syourlife. Stand up to them.”
“Ouch. That’s harsh.”
She held up her hands. “I’m a tough love kinda girl.”
“Don’t I know it,” I smiled. “Thanks for the pep talk,DrRaven. I’ll bear it in mind when I’m next over at family dinner, jousting with Dad over the moral value of choosing social housing over the private sector.”
“Anytime.” She pulled me in for a kiss. Her lipstick tasted of strawberry, and most likely of Cara. It was at times like this I wished I were gay and Raven were single. “You take care of yourself, Missy, seriously. Promise me, at least, that you’ll bring him here. Whoever your Mr Dangerous turns out to be, make sure you’re here where we can at least keep an eye on you.”
“When I find him, you’ll be the first to scope him out,” I said. “That’s a promise.”
I waved goodbye to Cara, and Tyson, and Trixie, and all the other people I’d come to know so well at Club Explicit, and then I turned my back on them.
Once out in the cold London air, I stared back at the doors that had welcomed me into a whole new world. A world of acceptance and release… of friendship and excitement. Doors to a world of pleasure I’d never known existed.
I’d never have believed the Explicit excitement would dull. Never have believed I’d need something else, something more than the beautiful games I’d learnt to play in that place.
Masque had a lot to bloody answer for.
***
Chapter One
Sophie
“Have you heard the news?” Christine leant over my desk, armed with tenant files for the anti-social behaviour briefing at midday. Her grey hair was up tight in its trademark bun, glasses perched on her nose in her usual display of tenant-liaison efficiency.
I hadn’t heard any news, not that my ears were particularly open for it. I’d been glued to my phone the remainder of the weekend, checking out profiles on Edgeplay, the dating network for kinky freaks like me. The handset was now on my lap under the desk, while I compulsively checked for new messages.
“What news?”
“You really haven’t heard? Crikey! It’s about your patch as well.”
“My patch?”
She tutted condescendingly. “Well, youarethe estate manager of the East Veil block, aren’t you?”
“Last time I checked.”
“You’d think someone would have thought to tell you, then, wouldn’t you? There’s no communication round here these days, it’s all about email, email, email, no damn given fortalking.”
“What’s the news on East Veil? Someone thrown a fridge from their balcony again? A car-jacking? Piss in the communal hallway? More graffiti?”
“You need to take this estate more seriously, Sophie, it’s not like Haygrove. East Veil has a damned sight more problems than a bit of urine in the corridors.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “Sorry. Let’s start again. What’s happened in East Veil?”
Her face took on the utmost sincerity, like war itself had broken out amidst the tower blocks. “Callum Jackson – hewas released this weekend.”
Now she had my attention. “I thought he was inside another six months?”
“Good behaviour, apparently. If you can believe that.”
If what rumour said about Callum Jackson was even half-true then no, I wouldn’t have believed it. He was red-flagged on our system, a troublesome tenant of the most ferocious variety. Except he wasn’t really a tenant, not officially. He’d been raised on East Veil by a mother well known to our housing association. She’d had two children taken into care since Callum, but social services had come too late on the scene for him. By all accounts he was unpredictable, violent and virtually feral. Hannah Jackson, mother of the year, had thrown her son onto the streets several years back—I’d read about it in the East Veil block file once I’d been assigned the estate—and since then he’d coasted around the place, bedding down in the garage block, or the maintenance huts, or even in vacant properties if you didn’t get them boarded up in time.
