A dark blue Ford Escort, its windows misted with condensation, pulled up next to her and the driver wound down his window. “Evening,” he said, cheerfully.
“You looking for business,” she asked, pushing herself away from the wire mesh and pulling down the Parka’s hood to reveal a once pretty face that had been marred by a long scar down one side.
The driver was a skinny white male with unkempt hair, a goatee beard, and a lived-in face. “Jump in,” he said. “It’s too cold to talk out there.”
With a reluctant shrug, the prostitute scurried around to the passenger side and whipped open the door. She slid in, slammed it shut, and began rubbing her hands together to get the circulation going. “It’s too cold out there,” she told him, “so if you want to do some business, it’ll have to be done in your car. Is that okay with you?” Without waiting for an answer, she reached out and turned the heating up to full.
The driver smiled obligingly. “Sure,” he said, “let’s do it right here.”
The hooker frowned in confusion. “Here?” she said, turning her nose up at the suggestion. “We can’t do it here, it’s way too public.”
“Nah,” Kevin Murray said, his smile vanishing, “here will do just fine.”
As he spoke a figure appeared outside the car and tugged open the passenger door. Alarmed, the prostitute spun around to face the newcomer, terrified that he was going to deprive her of her hard-earned takings.
A gloved hand reached in, took a firm hold of her arm, and unceremoniously yanked her out of the car.
“Get off me,” she screamed, trying to shake her arm free as the man pinned her to the side of the car.
A warrant card was thrust in front of her face. “Angela Marley,” Colin Franklin said in a voice devoid of emotion, “I’m DC Franklin from the Area Major Investigation Pool, and I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of PC Stanley Morrison, which occurred at the Royal London Hospital on Monday 10th January 2000. You are also being arrested for administering a poisonous substance to PCs Alec O’Brien and Sharon Lassiter, thereby causing GBH, and for assisting an offender who was unlawfully at large.” As he cautioned her, he spun her around and applied handcuffs to her scrawny wrists.
“No, no, I didn’t kill anyone,” Angela blurted out, her eyes darting imploringly from Franklin to Murray, who had alighted the car to assist his colleague. “I admit I drugged the other two, but only because Deontay Garston forced me to, and it was Claude shot the copper on the bed, not me.”
“Save it for the interview,” Murray said, dispassionately. “Or better still, for the Judge.”
Murray donned a pair of latex gloves and patted down the coat for any sharps she might have concealed upon her. There were none, but he did find a cheap mobile phone, which he held up for Franklin to see.
“Whose phone is this?” he asked Marley.
“It’s mine,” she said, knowing they would think she had nicked it from a punter.
Murray smiled nastily. “I’m sure it is, treacle,” he told her. And I bet the last three digits of its number are 321, he thought smugly.
He opened the back door, placed a hand on Angela’s head, and guided her into the rear passenger seat as Colin Franklin went around and got into the back from the other side.
Despite having seized the town’s CCTV for the night they had arrested Winton, the detectives had never worked out how she had made her way back to London on her own. Somehow, though, she had. Their best guess was that she had hitched a ride back the following morning, but they were resigned to the fact that they might never know. In the end, it was largely irrelevant anyway.
With no money to her name, and nowhere to stay now that the squat had been closed down, she had reverted to type and started soliciting in her old haunt at Whitechapel.
As luck would have it, a local vice officer had spotted her loitering outside the Quaker Street car lot the previous evening. Unfortunately, by the time he’d spun his car around to go back and look for her, she had vanished, presumably having gone off with a punter. The officer had notified AMIP immediately, and they had arranged to swamp the area with staff the following evening.
“Look on the bright side,” Franklin said as Murray drove them back to Whitechapel, “you’ll have somewhere warm to stay during the worst of the winter and, if you want it, you can get help to kick the addiction.”
“I’d rather kick you,” she replied, staring at him with the dead eyes of an addict.
Chapter 41
Nine months later…
Jack Tyler and Tony Dillon were sitting in the Police Room at The Old Bailey, and both were bored out of their brains. The chairs in the dimly lit area were hard and unyielding, and the place had the feel of a doctor’s waiting room.
The other team members who had come up to court for the verdict had all grown bored with the waiting and had popped down to the second floor public canteen to grab a drink.
The jury had gone out three days ago and everyone had expected them to come back within a couple of hours, not to stay out for the rest of the week.
Jack glanced wearily at his watch.
15:20.
He blew out his cheeks. “If they don’t come back in soon, the Judge will send them home for the day and we’ll have to come all the way back up here again tomorrow.”
Dillon stifled a yawn. “Why do you think
