As I looked on, a burly white man with tattoos snaking up both his bare arms came over to me. 'Hello, doll. You look like you're looking for a man. Will I do?' he asked jocularly.
'Not unless you've had your skin bleached,” I told him. He looked confused. 'I'm looking for Stick,' I explained.
He raised his eyebrows. 'A nice girl like you? I don't think you're his type, doll.'
'We'll let Stick be the judge of that, shall we? Can you point him out to me?' I demanded. It seemed like a waste of time to tell this ape that I was neither nice, nor a girl, nor a doll.
He pointed down the hall. 'He's on the last table on the left. If he's not interested, doll, I'll be waiting right here.'
I bit back my retort and headed down the aisle between the three-quarter-sized tables. At the end of the room, there were four competition-sized tables. A chunky black man was bending over the last table on the left. Behind him, in the shadows, was the man I took to be Stick. I could see how he'd earned the name. He was over six feet tall, but skinny as his cue. He looked like a stick insect, with long, thin arms protruding from a white t-shirt and twig-like legs encased in tight leather trousers. His head was hidden in the shadows, but as I approached, he emerged and I could see a gaunt face with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes surrounded by black curly hair grown in a thick halo to counteract the pinhead impression he'd otherwise have given.
At the edge of the light, I stopped and waited till the man at the table made his stroke. The red ball he'd been aiming for shuddered in the jaws of the pocket before coming to rest against one cushion. With an expression of disgust, he moved away, chalking his cue. The thin man walked up to line up his shot and I stepped forward into the light.
He frowned up at me, and I met his eyes. They were like bottomless pools, without any discernible expression. It was like looking into a can of treacle. I swallowed and said, 'George from Leeds said I should talk to you.'
Stick straightened up, but the frown stayed in place. 'I know a George from Leeds?'
'George from the Hambleton Hotel. He said you could help me.'
Stick made a great show of carefully chalking his cue, but I could tell he was sizing me up from under his heavy eyebrows. Eventually he put his cue on the table and said to his opponent, 'Be right back. Do not move a fucking ball. I have total recall.'
He strode across the hall and I followed him as he unlocked a side door and entered a stuffy, windowless office. He settled down in a scruffy armchair behind a scratched wooden desk and waved me to one of the three plastic chairs set against the wall.
He pulled a silver toothpick from his pocket and placed it in his mouth. 'I'm not like George,” he said, the traces of a Caribbean accent still strong in his voice. 'I don't usually talk to strangers.'
'So what's this? A job interview?'
He smiled. Even his teeth were narrow and pointed, like a cat's. 'You too little for a cop,' he said. 'You wearing too much for a whore. You not twitchy enough for a pusher. Sweatshirt like that, maybe you a roadie's lady looking for some merchandise for the band. I don't think I've got anything to be afraid of, lady.'
I couldn't help smiling. In spite of myself, I felt a sneaking liking for Stick. 'I hear you might be able to help me. I'm looking for somebody I think you know.'
'What's your interest?' he demanded, caution suddenly closing his face like a slammed door.
I'd given the matter of what to say to Stick some thought on the way there. I took a deep breath and said, 'I'm a private inquiry agent. I'm trying to get in touch with this woman.' Again, I took out the photograph of Moira and handed it over.
He glanced at it without a flicker of recognition. 'Who she?'
'Her name is Moira Pollock. Until recently, she was working the streets round here. I'm told you might know where she went.'
Stick shrugged. 'I don't know where you get your information, but I don't think I can help you, lady. Matter of interest, what you want her for?'
In spite of his nonchalant appearance, I could see Stick had taken the bait. I reeled out my prepared speech. 'Some years back, she was in the rock business. Then she dropped out of sight. But all those years, her work's been earning her money. The record company held on to it and they won't hand it over to anyone. Now her family badly need that money. They want to sue the record company. But to do that, they either need to prove Moira's dead or get her to agree.'
'Sounds like a lot of bread to me, if it's worth paying you to find out. So you working for this Moira's family?'
'A family friend,' I hedged.
He nodded, as if satisfied. 'Seems to me I might have heard her name. This family friend… They pay your expenses?'
I sighed. This job was turning into a cash-flow nightmare. And none of my payees were the kind to hand out receipts. 'How much,” I groaned.
Stick flashed his smile again and took a joint out of the desk drawer. He lit it with a gold Dunhill and took a deep drag. 'A monkey,' he drawled.
'You what?' I spluttered with genuine surprise. He had to be kidding. He couldn't really think I would pay five hundred pounds for a lead on Moira's whereabouts.
That's the price, take it or leave it. Lot of money involved, it's got to be worth it,' Stick said calmly.
I shook my head. 'Forget it,' I replied. 'You told me yourself, you don't even know the woman. So anything you can tell me has got to be pretty chancy.'
He scowled. He'd forgotten the pit his caution had dug for him. 'Maybe I was just being careful,' he argued.
'Yeah, and maybe you're blagging me now,' I retorted. 'Look, I've had an expensive day. I can give you a hundred now, without consulting my client. Anything more and I have to take advice, and I don't think I'll get the go-ahead to pay five hundred pounds to someone who didn't even know Moira. You can take it or leave it, Stick. A definite oner now, or a probable zero later.'
He leaned back in his chair and gave a low chuckle. 'You got a business card, lady?' he asked.
Puzzled, I nodded and handed one over. He studied it, then tucked it in his pocket. 'You one tough lady, Kate Brannigan. A man never knows when he might need a private eye. OK, let me see the colour of your money.'
I counted out five twenties on the desk top, but kept my hand on the cash. 'Moira's address?' I demanded.
'She left the streets about six months ago. She checked in at the Seagull Project. It's a laundry.'
'A what?' I had a bizarre vision of Moira loading tablecloths into washing machines.
Stick grinned. 'A place where they clean you up. A drug project.'
That sounded more like it. 'Where is this Seagull Project?' I asked.
'It's on one of those side streets behind the photography museum. I can't remember the name of it, but it's the third or fourth on the left as you go up the hill. A couple of terraced houses knocked together.'
I got to my feet. 'Thanks, Stick.'
'No problem. You find Moira and she gets her bread, you tell her she owes Stick the other four hundred pounds for information received.'
9
I parked the car in a pay and display behind the National Film and Television Museum. I walked round to the museum foyer and found a telephone booth which miraculously contained a phone book. I looked up the Seagull Project, and copied its address and number into my notebook. I checked my watch and decided I deserved a coffee, so I walked upstairs to the coffee bar and settled myself down in a window seat looking out over the city centre.
The pale spring sun had broken through the grey clouds, and the old Victorian buildings looked positively romantic. Built on the sweatshops of the wool industry, the once prosperous city had fought its urban decay and
