the gray-brown brick. On the road surface, the ancient tarmac had worn away in spots, like bald patches, to reveal the outline of old cobbles beneath. To Sue’s left, a short section of the terrace had been converted into a row of shops: grocer, butcher, newsagent-tobacconist, video rental; and on the right, about twenty yards from the factory gates, stood a tiny cafe.
Certainly from the outside there was nothing attractive about the place. The white sign over the grimy plate- glass window was streaked reddish brown with rusty water that had spilled over from the eaves, and the R and the F of ROSE’S CAFE had faded to no more than mere outlines. Hanging in the window itself was a bleak, handwritten card offering tea, coffee and sandwiches. The location was ideal, though. From a table by the window, Sue would just about be able to see through the film of dirt, and she would have a fine view of the workers filing out of the gates down the street. As far as she could tell, there was no other direction they could take.
She walked all the way up to the gates themselves. They stood open, and there was no guardhouse or sentry post. Obviously, national defense wasn’t at stake, and a fish-processing plant had little to worry about from terrorists or criminal gangs. A dirt path ran a hundred yards or so through a weed- and cinder-covered stretch of waste ground to the factory itself, a long two-story prefab concrete building with a new redbrick extension stuck on the front for clerical staff. Inside the glass doors was what looked like a reception area, and the windows in the extension revealed offices lit by fluorescent light. Apart from the front, the only other side of the factory that Sue could see was the one closest to the river, and it was made up entirely of numbered loading bays. Several white vans were parked in the area and drivers in blue overalls stood around talking and smoking.
As Sue stood by the gates memorizing the layout, a loud siren sounded inside the building and a few seconds later people started to hurry out toward her. She looked at her watch: twelve o’clock, lunch hour. Quickly, she turned back and slipped into the cafe. A bell pinged as she entered, and a wrinkled beanpole of a woman in curlers and a greasy smock glanced up at her from behind the counter, where she had been buttering slices of thin white bread for sandwiches.
“You must have nipped out early, love,” the woman said cheerfully. “Usually takes them all of thirty seconds to get here after the buzzer goes. Them as comes, that is. Now the Brown Cow up the road does pub lunches, there’s plenty ’as deserted poor Rose’s. Don’t hold with lunchtime drinking, myself. What’ll you have then? A nice cup of tea?”
Was there any other kind? Sue wondered. “Yes, thanks, that’ll do fine,” she said.
The woman frowned at her. “Just a cup of tea? You need a bit more than that, lass. Put some meat on your bones. How about one of these lovely potted-meat sandwiches? Or are you one of them as brings her own lunch?” Her glance had turned suspicious now.
Sue felt flustered. It was all going wrong. She was supposed to slip into the place unobtrusively and order from a bored waitress who would pay her no attention. Instead, she had gone and made herself conspicuous just because she had run for cover when the siren went and everyone had started hurrying toward her. She was too jumpy, not very good at this kind of thing.
“I’m on a diet,” she offered weakly.
“Huh!” the woman snorted. “I don’t know about young ’uns today, I really don’t. No wonder you’ve all got this annexa nirvana or whatever they calls it. Cup of tea it is, then, but don’t blame me if you start having them there dizzy spells.” She poured the black steaming liquid from a battered old aluminum pot. “Milk and sugar?”
Sue looked at the dark liquid. “Yes, please,” she said.
“New there, are you?” the woman asked, pushing the cup and saucer along the red Formica counter.
“Yes,” said Sue. “Only started today.”
“Been taking time off for shopping already, too, I see,” the woman said, looking down at Sue’s carrier bag. “Don’t see why you’d want to shop in that place when there’s a Marks and Sparks handy.” She looked at the bag again. “Pricey that lot are. They charge for the name, you know. It’s all made in Hong Kong anyroads.”
Would she never stop? Sue wondered, blushing and thinking frantically about what to say in reply. As it happened, she didn’t have to. The woman went on to ask an even more difficult question: “Who d’you work for, old Villiers?”
“Yes,” said Sue, without thinking at all.
The woman smiled knowingly. “Well take my advice, love, and watch out for him. Wandering hands, he’s got, and as many of ’em as an octopus, so I’ve heard.” She put a finger to the side of her nose. The door pinged loudly behind them. “Hey up, here they come!” she said, turning away from Sue at last. “Right, who’s first? Come on, don’t all shout at once!”
Sue managed to weave her way through the small crowd and take the table by the window. She hoped that old Villiers and his friends were among the people who had deserted Rose’s for the Brown Cow. If they were management, it was very unlikely that they spent their lunch hour eating potted-meat sandwiches and drinking tannic tea in a poky cafe.
Still, it was a bloody disaster. Sue had thought she could come to this place every day at about five o’clock for as long as it took without arousing much attention. After that, providing the weather improved and the police didn’t catch up with her, if she needed to stay any longer she could buy some cheap binoculars and watch from the clump of trees just above the factory site. But now she had been spotted and, what’s more, she had lied. If the woman found out that Sue really didn’t work at the factory, she would become suspicious. After all, Rose’s Cafe was hardly a tourist attraction. She would have to spy from the woods now, whatever the weather. The only bright spot on the horizon was the Brown Cow. If workers went there at lunchtime, perhaps some also returned in the evening after work. It was easier to be unobtrusive in a large busy pub than in a small cafe like Rose’s.
Annoyed with herself and with the weather, Sue lit a cigarette and examined the faces of the others in the cafe, making the best of what time she had. Calm down, she told herself. It won’t take that long to find him if he’s here. It can’t.
36 Kirsten
What else did you remember?” Sarah asked, leaning forward over the table and cupping her chin in her hands.
“That’s just it,” Kirsten said. “Nothing. It’s so frustrating. I’ve had two more sessions since then and got nowhere. Every time I pull back at the same point.”
It was seven o’clock in the evening. Kirsten had parked the car off Dorchester Street and met Sarah at the station about an hour earlier. They had walked up to the city center in the lightly falling snow and now sat in a pub on Cheap Street near the Abbey. The place was busy with the after-work crowd and Christmas shoppers taking a break. Kirsten and Sarah had just managed to squeeze in at a small table.
“Are you going to carry on?” Sarah asked.
Kirsten nodded. “I’ve got another session in the morning.”
“So you do want to know?”
“Yes.”
“You know there’s been another one, don’t you, just before the end of term? That makes two now-three including you.”
“Kathleen Shannon,” Kirsten said. “Aged twenty-two. She was a music student. I only wish…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, Kirstie. It’s me, Sarah, remember?”
Kirsten smiled. “You’ll probably think I’m mad. I feel so empty sometimes and then I get so angry. I keep thinking of those two others. And there’s this block, like a huge black lump or a thick cloud in my mind, and the whole memory’s locked in there. I don’t think it will go away, Sarah, even if the police do get him. What if they find him and they can’t prove he did it? What if he gets off with probation or something? He might even slip away from them.”
“Well, that’s their problem, isn’t it? You know I’m not the police’s greatest fan, but I suppose they know their job when it comes to things like this. After all, it’s respectable middle-class girls getting killed, not prostitutes.”
