‘About a month ago I had a client in one evening. I gave him a massage and when I asked him if he wanted me to dial his number he asked me if he could tie me up and then get himself frenched. I said that it would cost him another twenty, and he agreed. So there I was, trussed up like a roast chicken, having finished frenching him, and I ask him to untie me. He gets this funny look in his eye, and calls me a dirty whore, or something like that. Well you get used to men going mean on you when you’ve finished, like they’re ashamed of themselves, but I could see that this one was different, so I tried to stay calm. Then he got the knife out and start to lay it flat on my neck like he wanted me to be scared. Which I was. Fit to scream my lungs out of my throat, only I didn’t want to scare him into cutting me right away, thinking that I might be able to talk him out of it.’ She took another tremulous drag on her cigarette.

‘But that was just his cue to start throttling me, him thinking that I was about to scream, I mean. He grabbed hold of my windpipe and starts to choke me. If one of the other girls hadn’t walked in there by mistake he’d have scratched me out and no mistake. I had the bruises on my neck for almost a week afterwards.’

‘What happened when the other girl came in?’

‘Well, I couldn’t say for sure. I was more concerned with drawing breath than seeing that he got a taxi home all right, you know what I mean? As far as I know he just snatched up his things and got his smell out the door.’

‘What did he look like?’

‘He had a uniform on.’

‘What kind of uniform? Can you be a little more specific?’

She shrugged. ‘Who am I, Hermann Goering? Shit, I don’t know what kind of uniform it was.’

‘Well was it green, black, brown or what? Come on, girl, think. It’s important.’

She took a fierce drag and shook her head impatiently.

‘An old uniform. The sort they used to wear.’

‘You mean like a war veteran?’

‘Yes, that’s the sort of thing, only a bit more — Prussian, I suppose. You know, the waxed moustache, the cavalry boots. Oh yes, I nearly forgot, he had spurs on.’

‘Spurs?’

‘Yes, like to ride a horse.’

‘Anything else you remember?’

‘He had a wineskin, on a string which he slung over his shoulder, so that it looked like a bugle at his hip. Only he said that it was full of schnapps.’