‘Is Kelly there?’

We wait. Our breath steams through the open window. The wad of paan bought on Brick Lane is thick and aniseed in my mouth. It is midnight. Petticoat Lane is quiet. The most famous market in east London.

'Is Kelly there?'

The cops fall silent. There is nothing but the clink of chains scraping gently in the wind. The night has turned long, and sleep creeps at the back of my neck. An encounter with Danny, a Jamaican crack dealer with convictions for assault, armed robbery and penchant for attacking officers of the law, has left us drained.

'Who wants to know?'

'Elliot.'

'Fitz Elliot?'

There is wariness. And fear.

'Yeah.'

'Wait a minute.'

The clanking grows.

In the pitted gloom of a sodium light they begin to emerge. Under the meat racks and clothing stalls, the dank smell of piss and decay cloaking the cooling midnight: shapes. Cruel, muted shapes. Misshapen shadows.

‘You got any money?’

I can barely make out the speaker. A beard. Cap. Angled cheekbones. Dirty fingers gripping the window. In the light of the dashboard, Fitz turns and asks for cash, before shoving my £10 note into its hands.

'Get Kelly. Tell her Elliot is here. We need to talk'.

The figure shuffles off.

'Who's Kelly?' I ask.

'A tom … prostitute. She’ll talk. Spill her life story for a wrap. Just don’t tell anyone we brought you here.’

I wonder how he knows the girls. I'd seen some before. Though never a 'sister' like this one: a Muslim. You feel they would eat your very flesh, if they could, the hunger that leeches from them. I knew the women faced a hard life from the local youths; the men in the mosques were barely better and took pains to mete out punishment – even when they were customers. Swollen heads and eyes, broken noses and gashes from bottles, bruises: all gifted by the peoples of the Endz. Feral creatures like this were so far down the foodchain they barely warranted a pimp. Maybe Fitz was an unlikely ally.

Liam looks bored. He takes a chunk out of the beigel and looks at his watch.

'Break soon.'

Fitz ignores him, staring out of the window towards the night. There is a shuffling sound as the shapes move into the headlights.

To Jack all those years ago, used to the wild open countryside of California and the wharves of San Francisco, street women had seemed:

"Twisted monstrosities that shouldered me on every side, inconceivable types of sodden ugliness, the wrecks of society, the perambulating carcasses, the living deaths – women blasted by disease and drink till their shame brought not tuppence in the open mart."

They were "dying with every step they took and each breath they drew", he raged, claiming it was:

"Far better to be a people of the wilderness and desert, of the cave and the squatting-place, than to be a people of the machine and the Abyss."

Had nothing changed? If I threw a stone from here, I'd be back among the wealth and stress of the City. Could two such worlds exist, so close?

Pressed beside me, Harriet is silent. There is something eager about her, too. She loves sex, she says, this Orthodox Jewess stalking the corners of the Abyss with me, hunting prostitutes and Islamic gangs. Her hand has slid, casually, to my lap.

In the darkness she turns to make sure we're not overheard, putting her mouth close to my ear.

Before she can speak a shriek builds to a cry, outside in the shadows, then cuts off. The door opens.

'Ok, here she is. Talk.'

But I cannot move. For what I see is horror.

***

Nick Ryan ©2009 extracted from forthcoming book

Photo ©Sam White