hell with it.
She woke with a start because someone was standing next to her. Blinded by the pool of light from her desk lamp, Paula could only see the outline of a figure against the dimly lit squad room. She jerked upright and pushed back in her chair, scrambling to her feet. A low laugh came from what she could now see was a woman. Middle- aged, middle-height and middle-weight. Dark hair in a neat bob. Face a bit like a garden gnome, complete with button nose and rosebud mouth. ‘Sorry to disturb your nap,’ she said. ‘I’m Sergeant Dean. From Vice.’
Paula nodded, pushing her hair back from her face. ‘Hi. Sorry. I’m DC McIntyre. I just put my head down for five minutes … ’
‘I know who you are, pet.’ The accent was from the North East, the cadences blunted from years spent elsewhere. ‘No need to apologise. I know what it’s like when you’re in the thick of it. Some weeks, you wonder if your bed was only a dream.’
‘Thanks for coming in. I didn’t expect you to give up your Saturday night.’
‘I thought it was easier to come in. And besides, my husband and my two lads are off to Sunderland for the late kick-off game, they’ll not be back till gone eleven by the time they’ve had their post-match curry. So all you’re keeping me from is crap telly. What Bryant had to say sounded a lot more interesting. Care to fill in the blanks?’ DS Dean settled herself comfortably in Chris Devine’s desk chair and propped her boot heels on the bin. Paula tried not to mind.
Slightly wary of the Vice cop’s obvious interest, Paula explained Tony’s theory as best she could then smiled apologetically. ‘The thing with Dr Hill is that his ideas can sound … ’
‘Stark staring mad?’
Paula chuckled. ‘Pretty much. But I’ve worked with him for long enough now to know that it’s kind of spooky how often he gets things right on the money.’
‘I’ve heard he’s good,’ Dean said. ‘They say that’s part of the reason Carol Jordan has such a great success rate.’
Paula bristled. ‘Don’t underestimate the chief. She’s a helluva detective.’
‘I’m sure she is. But we can all use a bit of help now and again. And that’s the reason I’m here. Whenever other detectives are interested in my turf, it’s time to take a personal interest. None of us wants our carefully cultivated contacts rubbed up the wrong way.’
Now that Dean had laid out her stall, Paula felt more comfortable in her presence. ‘Naturally,’ she said. ‘So, can you help me?’
Dean dug into the pocket of her jeans and took out a memory stick. ‘I’ll share what I can. Bryant said you were interested in new lasses?’
‘That’s right. I hear there are more new faces because of the recession.’
‘That’s true, but a lot of them are inside workers, not on the street. How new are you interested in?’
‘A month before the killings began?’
‘I like to keep my ear to the ground,’ Dean said, digging into the pocket of her jeans and coming out with a smartphone. ‘I also don’t like putting anything on the computer that doesn’t have to be there. Especially when it comes to vulnerable young women.’ She fiddled with the phone then gave a grunt of satisfaction.
‘There’s no hard and fast way of dealing with the crap out on the streets,’ Dean said, thumbing through a list. ‘It’s all a bit ad hoc, you might say. When new faces show up, we try and get alongside them. Sometimes a little bit of leaning is all it takes, you know? Especially with the more or less respectable ones. A mention of how a criminal record will fuck up everything from their childcare to their credit rating and you can see the wheels going round. But that’s a tiny minority. Once they’ve got as far as walking down that street, there’s mostly no going back. So what I’m looking for there is to develop sources. And just to keep an eye out, you know?’
‘Nobody wants bodies turning up.’
‘Aye, well, I like to think we mostly manage to step in before it gets that far. My bonny lads tell me I’m living in cloud cuckoo land. But at least I try to get their names and a bit of background so we know what to put on the toe- tag, if it comes to it.’
‘So what are we looking at here?’
‘Forty-four square miles of BMP force area. Nine hundred thousand population, give or take. At any given time, there’s somewhere around a hundred and fifty women working as prostitutes. When you think that about fifty per cent of men admit to having paid for sex, them lasses are working bloody hard for a living.’
‘Not much of a living, either,’ Paula said.
‘Enough to keep them in drugs so they don’t care what they’re doing to earn the money for the next fix.’ Dean shook her head. ‘I bloody hope I’ve brought my lads up with a better attitude to women, that’s all I can say.’ She took her feet off the bin and sat up straight. ‘The time frame you’re looking at, I’ve got three names for you.’
‘I’m just glad it’s not more than that.’
‘We’re getting into summer time. The nights are lighter and the punters are more wary of being recognised when they’re kerb crawling.’
‘I never thought of prostitution as being seasonal.’
‘Just the street stuff, pet. Indoors goes like a fair all year round. If you were interested in indoor, this list would be more like a dozen. So here we go. Tiffany Sedgwick, Lateesha Marlow and Kerry Fletcher.’
Paula couldn’t believe her luck. ‘Did you say Kerry Fletcher?’ she said, excitement quickening in her.
‘Does that ring a bell?’
‘Kerry Fletcher’s female?’
Dean looked at her as if she’d lost the plot. ‘Of course she’s female. You didn’t ask me about rent boys. Why? Does the name mean something?’
