One

She isn’t the girl he asked for. He made it clear he wanted a petite, innocent looking young blonde. I want a girl not a woman he’d said. Gul told him this is a woman’s game and wanting a girl would make him a paedophile – a label he doesn’t want added to his already long list of illegalities. What she wanted to say was, you sick fuck. He acquiesced with just make sure she’s white, they fucked us, let’s fuck them back.

Gul didn’t think paying a white girl for sex was pay back for the British Raj, but she didn’t say it. The Koohi-Nur is never coming back, no matter how many pearl necklaces are proffered. She thought, he couldn’t possibly get with a white girl or a brown one for that matter without paying for it, but she didn’t say it. She also thought she might just get this fucker killed one day. This fucker who as her boss, doesn’t pay her enough and deserves to die. Deserves to suffer. This, she did say.

In her line of work as a getter of girls for guys, Gul’s got to know someone who knows someone who knows someone. Turns out she didn’t need to approach anyone. Turns out, she’s not the only one who wants Jignesh Mathur dead and buried. Cremated.

Two

Gul promises a hit without a glitch. Bobby Greaves listens as he’s reassured everything is in place. It will be there under the mattress, she said. Girls come and go and nobody will raise an eyebrow at your girl as long as she doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. Unless she has a sore thumb she joked. Bobby didn’t find this funny. There’s a henchman to take care of but that’ll be a piece of cake, a phrase she’s picked up from British TV. He ends the call with, if anything happens to her, I’ll kill you. This is also a phrase she’s heard on British TV but has found it’s hardly ever literal in its meaning.

Bobby makes a fuss of Sonny and opens the back door allowing the English Bulldog the run of the garden. Once outside, Sonny cocks his leg and comes running back in, looking for his master. With the dog at his heels, Bobby leaves the back door open and darkens the front room. On a table opposite a single seat sofa a lamp’s reddish glow provides the room with an unwelcome ambience. Holding a bottle of whisky and doggie treats, Bobby slumps into the sofa. Breaking the seal, he pours himself a generous amount. Two plops of ice follow. The single malt kisses his lips, coats his mouth, and lights the gentlest of fires in his throat. After a long draw on a cigarette, curtains of smoke part apologetically allowing the whisky to reach his mouth once more. He tears open the treats and looks at Sonny while fingering the pieces of ice around the bottom of his empty tumbler.
“Shall we get Naomi over tomorrow?”
Sonny’s tail wags at the sound of a name he knows well, and he tilts his head to the left and then to the right. Bobby pours himself another whisky and Sonny gorges on the treats.
“Let’s text her shall we?” Sonny jumps onto the sofa’s arm.

Bobby: you busy tomorrow?
Naomi: no
Bobby: come over 1ish
Naomi: need deets bout india
Bobby: which I now have
Naomi: cu tmw

Three

“Our names are Jade and Jack on the burners,” said Bobby Greaves.

Naomi Jackson doesn’t like the name.

“Get the kettle on while I run things through with you.”
She does as she’s told. “Why does everyone now drink Yorkshire tea? Some twat thought it was actually grown in Yorkshire.”
“Where’s it grown then?”
“India? Sri Lanka? I don’t know. Somewhere where tea grows. Not Yorkshire, that’s for sure.”
“You can have the proper stuff when you’re in Mumbai.”
Naomi shakes her head. “Gives me heartburn.”

Bobby shows Naomi a picture of Jignesh Mathur. Jig. His stock is rising in the Mumbai underworld, but this isn’t going down well with one Sushant Kumar, a rival who doesn’t want to share his territory. Jig’s game is drugs and his vice is girls. He likes them young.
Bobby takes a sip of his tea. “You forgot sugar, again.”

Naomi helps herself to a custard cream. “I didn’t forget. Sugar’s bad for you, cut it out of your diet as much as possible. Salts the real killer. While you’re at it, quit the smokes and switch to no nicotine vapes. Before you say anything, a biscuit isn’t gonna kill anyone. Can I have the rest of these?” Naomi slips the biscuits into her pocket.
“Help yourself. The blonde will be dropped off at Madira Restaurant & Bar. Jignesh doesn’t like girls being taken straight to his apartment. The girls are given the route from the bar to the apartment. It’s a five minute walk. You’ll need to get to the blonde before she gets to the apartment. The blonde will arrive at the bar at 6pm. You’ll have to assume her identity, made all the more harder because Jignesh has seen a picture. Her name is Rachel and she wears glasses. Any girl arriving at the apartment is vetted by Gul. Dye your hair and you’re good to go. It’s the rainy season so take a hat or you’ll look bedraggled.”
“Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”
“Exactly.”

“I’ll don a wig, not dyeing my hair for anyone. You can get non-prescription glasses online.”

“And you’re sure you want out after this?”

“Yes, this is it. The last one. I’ve made my money. I live off the bar work, so my savings are my future. How much for this hit?”

“Twenty-five. What you gonna do? You could run the pub? You live above it for a start.”

“I’m a bar maid with no ambition to be a landlady. I’m getting out of Heldon Bobby.”

Four

Slipping past anyone’s notice, Naomi waits on the second floor of an apartment block in Parel, Mumbai. So far, she’s only seen the city from an airport shuttlebus going to the Holiday Inn and a taxi from the hotel to the Madira Restaurant & Bar. When it’s done, Naomi’s promised herself a pamper at the hotel spa, maybe a quick dash on the treadmill in the gym and definitely a dip in the rooftop pool. She pushes her glasses a little further up the bridge of her nose. She wants a shower but will make do with wet wipes. She goes out onto the balcony and recognises the side street where she intercepted the blonde who was killing time and settling nerves with a Kingfisher.

Naomi knew the answers but had to ask the questions. What’s your name? How did you get here and who drove? Are you getting picked up and if so, what time and where? Where are you staying? Tell me anything else you’ve been told? With responses reaffirmed, Naomi let the blonde finish her beer and told her to go back to her hotel. She told her not to ask any questions and hushed her with more money than she would have made tonight plus extra for the taxis back to the hotel and airport. The blonde had tried to look young. Girls can make themselves look like a woman, but a woman will never look like a girl. Whether girl or woman, the thought of anyone being with Jignesh Mathur made Naomi feel sick.

After telling one of Jignesh’s henchman to stay as a look out at the bottom of the stairs, Gul slowly makes her way towards the second floor of the block. A shawl plasters her ageing and aching frame. Revealing teeth stained by betel leaves, she smiles at Naomi approvingly but checks herself before frivolity overcomes solemnity.
“Turn around, look at me. What’s your name?”
“Rachel.
“Who dropped you off and where?”
“Kam, at Madira.”
“What time is he picking you up?”
“Ten at Madira.”
“Where are you staying?”
“JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar Airport.”
“Good.”
They share perfunctory nods.
“Do you want a drink? There’s Jack Daniels in the room.”
“Not when I’m working.”
“OK. Can I get you tea or coffee?”
“I’ve got water.”
Gul raises her voice. “Show me what’s in your bag.” Naomi picks out the contents of her handbag and places them onto the floor – wet wipes, passport, phone, airpods, cardholder, hairbrush and ties, hand sanitiser, a bottle of water, custard creams and two handcuffs.
Gul points at the handcuffs. “What the bloody hell are those for?” The henchman walks up the stairs, cranes his neck around the corner and focuses on the contents splayed on the floor.
“You know, to be kinky. Some men like that stuff. If he’s not into it, I won’t do it.”
“OK. You’re here to fuck, not play. Go into that room and get ready. The clothes are on the bed.”

This is where it’ll happen. Naomi imagined something typical like a schoolgirls outfit, but what she finds are denim shorts and a crop top. Her burner is in a zipper bag concealed between wet wipes. She takes it out and sends a text.
Jade: on my way
This is the text Bobby Greaves wanted her to send if everything was going as planned, so far that is.
Jack: x
Naomi looks around the room. As well as a double bed, there’s a TV she chooses to switch on. She climbs out of her playsuit, takes wet wipes from her handbag, and uses them to freshen up her sticky skin. She doesn’t waste time cleaning areas Jignesh won’t be touching. She changes into the shorts and top and ties her hair in two bunches. She stands on her toes and comes down onto the soles of her feet, making her breasts bounce. He’s gonna come in his pants, she thinks. Naomi wishes she had a lollipop to complete the look. She looks at herself in the window of the apartment. Mumbai’s lights tremor in anticipation as they flicker like tiny flames through the apartment’s rain splattered window.

Five

The man who walks into the apartment doesn’t match the description of Jignesh Mathur. The first thing Naomi notices is the pistol.

Taking centre stage, he switches off the TV before surveying the scene. After rolling his sleeves up and throwing his keys onto the windowsill, he tries to pull his trousers up, but his belly won’t allow it. Taking a handkerchief from the top pocket of his shirt, he wipes his brow, before tucking it back. Peering over his glasses, he sees a statuesque and suggestive Naomi bending over on the bed with the palms of her hands resting either side of her knees. He waves away her wanton expression of fuck me and gestures to Naomi to come here with his forefinger.

Naomi steps off the bed. He tries grabbing her wrists to pull her towards him, but she puts her hands behind her back. Naomi doesn’t flinch when he holds the pistol to her temple. He begins to slide his free hand up her crop top, but she twists before he reaches her breasts. He pushes Naomi but all he manages to do is send her two steps back. She can’t fight him. The pistol is no longer a concern because he isn’t going to use it. He begins to rifle through her handbag where he finds her passport.

“Naomi Jackson. Not Rachel. Brown hair. Not blonde. British Citizen. Born 3^rd September 2000. Next week twenty-four but you will definitely miss your birthday. Passport photos don’t allow glasses but the glasses you are wearing have no prescription lenses. There’s a knife under the mattress. You handcuff him when you’re on top, you reach for the knife and kill him. Isn’t it? “Biscuits? You come to India and bring biscuits from home?”
“A girl can get homesick and they’re my favorite. Try one, if biscuits are your poison, you must.”

He walks over to the bed and lifts up the mattress. The knife is there. Naomi thinks he looks like a kid who’s come upon a hidden stash of sweets. He throws a custard cream into his mouth and makes a call.

It started with a taste he wasn’t used to. Too salty, almost metallic. Then came the confusion and abdominal pain which was shortly followed by drooling, muscle spasms and shortness of breath. Naomi changes quickly and throws the handcuffs, wig, shorts, crop top, glasses, pistol and knife into her handbag. As she’s crushing the biscuits and flushing the crumbs down the toilet, there’s a text from Bobby.

Jack: don’t tell me you’re running late
Jade: stuck in traffic
Jack: hard day at the office?
Jade: tomorrow will be even worse

Naomi’s sure Gul is dead. What she isn’t sure of is who tipped off the police. She needs to move quickly. The apartment block will soon be swarmed by Jignesh and his men.