sex in london by 3

Author:3
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

The address on the card took me to a street just off Hatton Garden, the center of

London's diamond trade. In the week, the area bustled with people buying and selling

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jewels and precious metals, or who worked in the offices above the ground-floor

shops. But on a Saturday morning it was all but deserted, shop fronts securely

shuttered and pavements silent. The only sign of life was an idling truck, from the

back of which a dozen of the hire cycles that had quickly become known as "Boris

bikes", after the incumbent mayor who'd instigated the rental scheme, were being

unloaded and placed in their street-side storage racks. The young black man slotting

the bikes rapidly and efficiently into place, oversized headphones clamped to his ears,

didn't even notice me as I passed.

I took a right turn, on to a street where half the buildings were shrouded in

scaffolding and brick dust from the renovation work taking place hung in the air. The

kind of street you could walk past a hundred times and never really notice it was

there.

As I scanned the row of door bells for Number 13, searching for the one with

Saffron Meadows' name alongside it, I felt a little foolish. What if it wasn't there?

What if I'd come on some kind of wild goose chase, driven by my kinky fantasies

about the owner of the case? But there it was – MEADOWS, printed out in raised

lettering on a Dymo Tape strip. I pressed the buzzer, and waited.

"Yes?" came a distant voice, oddly amplified by the intercom.

"Is that Saffron Meadows?" I asked.

"It is."

"Well, I'm from lost property at Transport for London. We've found something

belonging to you and I've come to return it."

There was a moment's pause, then she spoke again. "Very good. I'm on the

second floor. Come up."

A buzzer sounded, followed by a distinct click, and I pushed the black-painted

front door open. I found myself in a narrow, carpeted hallway that smelled of

artificially floral air freshener. A pile of post stood on a small, oval table, mostly

fliers and junk mail, the usual debris that gets pushed through London letterboxes

every morning.

I hefted the battered suitcase up two flights of creaking stairs, to where a door

stood faintly ajar, as though waiting my arrival.

"Come in!" that same voice called in answer to my tentative knock. Away from

the intercom speaker, it had a husky quality I hadn't noticed 'til now.

Pushing the door fully open, I entered her flat. Where the communal area I'd

walked through had been shabby, in need of a lick of paint, Saffron Meadows' home

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could have graced the pages of an interior design magazine. My feet sunk into the

thick pile carpet with every step. Floor-to-ceiling velvet drapes hung at the window,

and the sofa, made of soft, cream leather, was so big I couldn't help wondering how

she'd got it up the stairs and through the front door. A vase of lilies stood in the grate

of a wrought iron fireplace that was clearly no longer used, and the scent of incense

hung in the air. In this luxurious private space, I felt strangely on edge, still

wondering if I'd done the right thing in coming here.

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