"Ah, nothing," Chrissie replied, picking at the label on her bottle.

"Come on," Jimmy persevered, "he virtually collapsed when he saw you!"

"It was a dark time for me," Chrissie replied solomly, "and I don't really want to talk about it, thanks." Her bottle picking became more furious.

Jimmy thought for a moment, "Not even for me last bit of pasty?"

Despite his lack of social etiquette, Jimmy was actually very charming and Chrissie folded under his blatant cheekiness. Her face broke into an uncontrolable grin and she snatched the corner crust of pasty from Jimmy's hand.

"There's not a lot to tell really," she began, chewing on the pastry, "I...err," she thought for a moment, "Look, I don't want yous to judge me for this, yeah? I don't want you telling me I'm a dirty bitch and all that 'cos I know I am and that's why I'm here. But I'd rather be here than where I was back then, right?"

Everyone in the group was paying full attention now and they all nodded in agreement.

"I used to work the game, yeah?" she looked round everyone's faces to try and see into their thoughts. Denzil aside, all she got were blank stares. "I was a hooker," still blank, "A prossie, a lady of the night, a trollop, a whore," she was getting agitated now, "a fucking prostitute!" she finally shouted, causing a passing elderly lady to quicken her pace as best she could. "You get it now?" she asked. Sid, Trev and Jimmy nodded. "Right, so there you go. I was a prossie, right. I was with this bloke for about a year who got me hooked on crack then he beat me up and threw me out. So I was on the streets with no job, no house and a drug habit to support. I mean, what do you do? I'll tell you what you do - you go and see the dealer who gives you your shit and you offer him a blow job for a hit. That's what I did, anyway. Then his mates get wind of how desperate you are and they call you up, offering crack for blow jobs, hand jobs, sex - anything. I was so fucking desperate for that shit I'd do anything. Anyway, one day I'm just hanging around with a girl I knew, just waiting for a call or whatever and this guy comes up and asks 'how much'. The funny thing was, I wasn't even on the job. I was standing there smoking a fag, minding my business and he wants to know how much for a quick one up the allyway. Well, I wasn't going to turn down cash so I says 'hundred quid, mate'. And he went for it!" she smiled at the memory, "A hundred notes was double what I'd get from the crack boys. So we do the business and he fucks off and I go get smashed with my hundred nicker. A week later, I'm stumbling out the public lavs and I see two coppers walking towards me. I keep me head down, like you do with coppers, and just as I'm going past them I look up and it's him! Hundred quid man! Fuck me you shoulda seen his face when he recognised me."