Read Online High society by Ben Elton - Free Book Online

right now. Sure, baby, more honey in your arm and you can have it any time you want. But if you keep sniffling and moaning and standing in that corner crying like some little kid who don’t know the score, then I’m gonna have to mess you up good, you hear? I’m gonna whack you till your own mother wouldn’t recognize you…’
    The skinny girl with no home began to cry. It would make no difference whether her mother recognized her or not. Her mother had betrayed her. In fact, she had no mother.
    ‘OK, bitch, you makin’ me do this! There!’ It took very little effort to knock her off her feet.
    ‘Now, you listening to me, right? Get up off the floor, I don’t want no blood on my floor, you dirty bitch! You want I should punch you again? You gonna get up and take your clothes off, or do I tear them offa you then cut you up good?’
    Jessie raised herself to her feet and undressed.
    That’s better…That’s nice. Very nice. Cute, that’s for sure. OK, Jessie…Now you letting me see what you got I reckon you’re a sweet-looking baby and that’s lucky for you, Jessie, because I’m telling you now that food don’t come for free around here, no way, and shelter gotta be rented, oh yeah, that’s for sure too, baby. What’s more that arm candy you liked so much is gotta get paid for too and that costs plenty. In fact you already owe me for what you had, you gotta give me money for the hit you been on…’
    One of Jessie’s arms stretched across her naked breasts, the other reached down below her waist. It had been into this arm that Francois had made his puncture mark; a congealed trickle of blood lay dark upon the whiteness. Jessie’s eyes widened in fear…Surely that had been a gift?
    ‘What, you thought that good golden smack was free} You think I can afford to give it away? You dumb or something? You give me some money right now or you don’t get these nice new clothes I bought you, which incidentally you gotta pay for too. Hey, baby, if you got no money then you’re in big trouble, real big trouble…It ain’t me, little girl, but some of the guys I work with. I’m scared for you, real scared. They really bad people, especially when selfish ungrateful little Scottish bitches think they get to eat, sleep and get high for free while Francois pays!’
    Jessie could not wipe away the tears without further revealing her nakedness and so they just rolled down her cheeks and fell.
    ‘Listen, baby, I’ll tell you what. We can sort this out, OK? It can be cool. You don’t have to get cut up none if you don’t want to. If you don’t got no money then all you gotta do is go to work, OK? Like I said, that’s one cute little body you got there. Lotta guys like skinny, scared, fucked-up little girls. They gonna pay a lotta money for a piece of what you got. In fact, you know what? Since you owe me for that last jack I put in your veins, I can be your first client, baby. Oh yeah, you come over here right now.’

NEW SCOTLAND YARD
    I t was the first time that Commander Leman had been in the office of London’s Chief Constable, the most senior policeman in the country. This was the pinnacle, the highest point to which a police officer might aspire, and the most Olympian height from which to be crapped on.
    Commander Leman had not been offered a chair.
    ‘I don’t like publicity hunters, Leman.’ The Chief Constable had not even greeted him, nor had he deigned to look up from the papers on which he was working. He barked his comments directly at the set of annotated minutes that lay before him.
    ‘I believe that a policeman, whatever his rank, is no more than a part of a team. Of course he must show initiative and think independently within the force, but from the outside he should be entirely anonymous. Particularly to the media. My father used to say that a gentleman’s name should appear in the newspapers only thrice in his lifetime. When he is born, when he is married and when he dies.’
    ‘I agree,