lovely eyes.
She says, ‘So what do you want?’
She’s got a creepy, teeny-tiny voice. Like Marilyn Monroe on helium. She makes him think of the ghosts of little girls.
‘I want your help,’ he says. He sets his hands flat on the table, as if anchoring himself.
‘To do what?’ She purses rosebud lips, winsome and amused. He glimpses the worm-eaten thing inside her.
‘A man you know,’ Luther says. ‘A friend of yours. Henry Grady.’ He pauses, waits to see if that name gets a reaction. It doesn’t. Sweet Jane’s eyes twinkle. She smiles like a porcelain doll.
‘He killed an entire family,’ Luther says. ‘I’m scared he’s going to do it again.’
‘Well,’ she says. ‘I can definitely tell you all about him, if you like.’
‘I need you to do that. Please.’
She tilts her head to one side, juts out her lower lip. ‘I hate it in here.’
‘I bet you do.’
‘It’s full of dykes who want to go down on me. Screws leering through the peepholes at night. They don’t call them screws for nothing. You can hear them wanking off. There’s dried spunk on my door in the morning. You can flake it off with a fingernail. All the bitches in here are fucking jealous. They nick your stuff, they threaten you, they get punches in when nobody’s watching.’
‘Well, I’m sorry you’re not enjoying it.’
The petulant pout turns into a flirtatious grin, tugs at the corners of her mouth.
He says, ‘Listen. I don’t have time for all this. I’m on a clock. I wouldn’t have come to see you if I wasn’t desperate. So what do you want?’
‘Internet privileges.’
‘That’s not going to happen. Not for the kind of offence you’re in here for.’
‘It can be supervised. I just want to get to my message boards. I like cats. And pottery.’
‘Nope.’
Her smile widens, shows ivory-yellow teeth. He knows that if he ever sleeps again, his dreams will be infested by spectres of this woman.
He wonders how many children see her in their dreams, then tucks the thought back inside himself, like a prolapse.
Then he glances meaningfully at his hand, flat on the table before him.
He waits until she’s followed the line of his gaze, then raises his thumb. He reveals a baggie of cocaine.
‘You’ll never let me have that,’ says Sweet Jane Carr.
Warders watch from the far corner.
‘You never will,’ she says.
‘Well,’ says Luther. ‘I’m a desperate man.’
He slips the bag to her. She takes it with a swift, practised movement.
‘There’s more to come,’ he says.
‘What do you want?’
‘Henry Grady,’ he says. ‘Where did he live?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where did you meet?’
‘He always came to my place.’
‘How did he contact you?’
‘By text.’
‘Never by email?’
‘He didn’t do emails.’
‘What about his car? What kind of car did he drive?’
‘A normal car. Like a Ford Focus or something.’
‘What colour?’
‘Dark.’
‘Blue? Black?’
She shrugs.
‘Old? New?’
‘Oldish.’
‘Inside, was it tidy or messy?’
‘It was like new. It smelled nice.’
‘Can you remember the registration?’
‘Of course I can’t, silly. What do I look like?’
He smiles. Tempted to answer.
‘Tell me about what you did together.’
‘Well, first of all, I had to pretend to be a social worker,’ she says, widening her eyes. ‘We’d knock on a door, go in like Mulder and Scully.’
‘Go in where?’
‘Houses with new babies.’
‘How did he choose the houses?’
‘I don’t know. But he said he’d done it before, loads of times in the nineties. But never in such posh houses.’
‘Can you remember the areas?’
‘Off-hand, no.’
‘And what did you do, once you were in these houses?’
‘Ask to see the baby. Say there’s been a complaint. Scare the shit out of them.’
‘And what was the intent?’
‘To get a baby out of the house.’
‘And it never worked?’
‘No. Nobody ever let us in. The paperwork wasn’t good enough. They’d want to see ID, all the rest of it.’
‘How many times did you try this?’
‘Six or seven times.’
‘Over how long?’
‘Not long. Two weeks. He got more and more annoyed.’
‘Annoyed?’
‘He’s a very angry man.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Because he was. He hated everyone. Dykes. Queers. Darkies. Pakis. Americans. Homeless. Paedos. He hated paedos the most.’
Luther’s heart stops for a moment. ‘What does that mean, he hated paedos?’
‘He said anyone who hurt a kiddie should be strung up for it. But first they should have their balls cut off in public.’
‘What did you say to that?’
‘That I sucked my first cock when I was three and it was yum yum in my tum tum.’
Luther looks down at his hands. He knows this woman’s madness has seeped into him like the stink of cadaverine. It’s impossible to wash off. You can wash and wash and wash. You have to wait until it fades away.
‘You told him this?’ he says.
‘Oh, yeah. I hate it when people get on their high horse about paedos. It’s all hype. Kids love it.’
He grips the edge of the table. Counts down from five. ‘How did Henry react, when you told him this?’
‘He got angry.’
‘How angry?’
‘He went absolutely tonto on me. Ranting and raving, his hair all sticking up. He reminded me of Hitler. He
