Reviewing these books has provided me with a shameless opportunity of revealing my own murky past. I have, on two occasions, shared lodgings with both a lord and a lady of the night. Lady Night was an exquisite brown-skinned, green-eyed Barbadian. The reason for her overnight absences, she explained, was a job as a night nurse in a private London hospital. This was true. However, I soon discovered (by means of odd phone calls and menacing kerb- crawlers) that her earnings were boosted not by tending her patients but their male relatives. Lady Night had been forced into her profession at the age of 14 by a Baron of the Night who had threatened to plunge her hand into a chip-fryer if she did not submit to his demands. Whenever she described the debasing requirements of her clients, she would weep. Every few months she fell helplessly in love with a ghastly man whose sole aim was to relieve her of her earnings. I was at a loss to fathom why she continued to practise her profession when pimpless. Her sole companion was me, who has never, so far as I can remember, attempted to deep-fry anyone’s hands.

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