Amber by Heather Burnside (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

her throat was too constricted. She could feel the pressure building. Extreme pain pounded inside her head until it felt like it was going to explode. She carried on kicking and scratching, desperate to break free. To shout. To breathe. But his grip became stronger with his mounting excitement. She was losing strength. Her limbs slackened as the pain reached a peak, then all went black.

The last thing she spotted before she died was an image at the window. Her attacker had his back to the main office, but she could just about make out the vision set back from the hazy space that hovered behind her attacker’s angry head. It was the horror-stricken face of a young man who had been watching.

31

October 2015

Amber was feeling fed up, so she popped into the Rose and Crown hoping to have a few drinks and cheer herself up before work. As she walked inside the pub, she found Sapphire and Angie sitting at their usual table. They greeted her effusively and Amber noticed straightaway that Angie was really drunk.

She joined them and tried to strike up a conversation, but every time she and Sapphire were in the middle of a discussion, Angie butted in, waffling on in a drunken drawl. It was difficult when she was like this. None of what she said made much sense and it stopped the flow of conversation with whoever else was present.

They were just talking about the perils of unpredictable clients when Angie chipped in. ‘Eh, I’ve got sssomething to tell you. And you’ll want to hear it.’

‘Go on then, what is it?’ asked Amber.

‘In a minute. I need a drink.’

Angie got up unsteadily and staggered to the bar. Sapphire looked across at Amber and shook her head.

‘I know,’ said Amber, in acknowledgement. ‘She’s really pissed tonight.’

By the time Angie had come back from the bar, Amber guessed that she had forgotten what it was she was going to tell them.

‘Place isss dead,’ she said. ‘Not like the old days…’

Then old Angie looked about her wistfully. She was at an advanced stage of alcoholism, which meant that she didn’t think or speak in a logical sequence like most people. But she seemed to think there was something the girls would want to hear so Amber pressed her for the information.

‘What was it you wanted to tell us?’

‘What? Oh that! Yeah…’ Her voice had become livelier as though she was about to share a bit of juicy gossip. Then she spotted a man walking past them. ‘Ooh, haven’t ssseen him for a while.’

Amber raised her eyes at her, inquisitively.

‘What?’ asked Angie who suddenly seemed to remember what Amber and Sapphire were waiting to hear. ‘Oh yeah. ’Bout things not being the same. You’re not safe on the ssstreets now y’know. Look at that latessst killing.’

Amber had almost switched off but when Angie started going on about a killing, she sat up straight in her chair, paying rapt attention.

‘Killing? What killing? Not one of us lot I hope?’

‘Yeah. That nasty one. Erm, what was her name now? Karen? No… no… Carol. No, not Carol. Something like that.’

‘You don’t mean Cora, do you?’ suggested Sapphire.

Angie stared back, her eyes glazed and unfocused.

‘Big girl?’ Sapphire asked. ‘The one that had a go at you a few weeks ago and said you’d nicked a tenner?’

‘Yeah, that’sss the one.’

‘Shit! I don’t believe it. What happened?’

Angie leaned into them both conspiratorially and Amber got a whiff of the vinegar-like stench of stale alcohol on her breath. She pulled back and waited for Angie to speak.

Angie leaned back as well and seemed to forget what she was going to say for a moment but then she spoke. ‘Ssstrangled.’ She bent forward again. ‘In a squat. Her own room ap… pa… rently.’

Amber raised her hand to her mouth in shock. It was hard to believe. ‘Why? Who did it? Do they know?’

Angie shook her head. ‘Not a clue. One of the other sssquatters found her.’

‘Shit!’ said Amber and Sapphire in unison.

For a few minutes Amber tried to glean more information out of Angie with the morbid curiosity of someone who has just encountered the dark side of life. But it soon became obvious that she wouldn’t find out anything more. Angie either didn’t know or she couldn’t remember and all she did was impart the same information repeatedly.

‘I wonder who it could be?’ asked Sapphire.

Amber shrugged. ‘Dunno, maybe a sicko client. She might have taken him back to the squat and then he turned nasty on her.’

‘Jesus! It’s fuckin’ scary, isn’t it?’ said Sapphire. ‘Especially when you get them clients that take all their sick fantasies out on working girls, like the fuckin’ Yorkshire Ripper.’

Amber just nodded then changed the subject. It was worrying to think that a killer might be targeting the girls. After a while she finished her drink and set off for work. She felt like going less than ever now that she’d heard about Cora. But then she reassured herself that at least she had a degree of protection now, if she went on the assumption that Kev Pike was doing what she paid him for.

She wished there was somebody she could confide in about her worries, but Angie and Sapphire were the only girls who hung out in the pub now. The old crowd had moved on, and Amber wasn’t as close to Sapphire as she had been to Crystal. Angie was a waste of time, but she had been right when she’d said that things weren’t the same. As she trudged to work, Amber felt lonely. But, more than that, she was scared.

32

September 1999

Loretta was in the kitchen fixing her and Cliff a drink while Nathan was upstairs in his bedroom, which left Amy alone in the living room with Cliff. Even though he hadn’t touched her since that time many weeks ago, she still felt uncomfortable with him.

When he came to visit, he often brought presents for all of them, including her, and she