‘You didn’t?’
‘Never have, not really.’
‘Any idea what happened to her?’
‘Not after she left.’
‘An address for the brothel?’
‘Don’t say it was me that sent you. That’s the past, I’d prefer not to revisit it, and I’ve found myself another man. He’d not want to know the sordid details.’
Wendy scrolled through the images on her phone, Meredith looking over her shoulder.
‘I know her,’ Meredith said.
‘Janice Robinson.’
‘Yes, Janice. I was friendly with her, although she was worse than me. Drugs, that was her problem, unable to keep away from them.’
‘And you?’
‘It wasn’t so difficult. A good place in my life and they didn’t seem important, but Janice…’
Wendy continued to scroll, Meredith looking more closely than before.
‘Stop. That one,’ Meredith said. ‘I know her.’
‘We’ve not found anyone who has met her before,’ Gwen said. ‘How come you do.’
‘She didn’t work in the brothel, but she knew the woman in charge. Sometimes she’d come in, look around, never spoke to any of the girls.’
‘Her name?’
‘I never heard it mentioned. She was an attractive woman, spoke well, could have made good money, but it’s not everyone’s idea of employment. Better than waitressing, though. Anything’s better than that.’
‘She’s dead, Kensal Green Cemetery. We need you at Challis Street for an interview. You, Meredith Temple, are an important person.’
‘Square it with her outside.’
‘By the way, what were you in prison for?’
‘I had this client who should have known better. He starts getting demonstrative, sprouting the bible at me, Sodom and Gomorrah, blaming me for his inability to get it up. I push him off the bed, and he bangs his head on the floor, suffers internal bleeding of the brain and dies in hospital. They said I had purposely banged his head on the floor, not that I did.
‘I’m sentenced for involuntary manslaughter, and then the man’s estranged wife turns up at her local police station, says that she’s been overseas in Nepal or some other place, explains that her husband had been diagnosed years before as susceptible to an aneurysm. No idea why it didn’t come out at the trial in the first place, but then a prostitute, a lawyer for a client – what could you expect?’
‘No more,’ Wendy said.
Chapter 18
Wendy wasn’t a fan of football, but her husband had been, the reason she had been to Wembley Stadium on a few occasions, the first time back in the eighties, and more recently on 17th May 2008, the FA cup final between Portsmouth and Cardiff City, with Portsmouth winning 1-0, the winning goal kicked by Nwankwo Kanu.
The stadium loomed large as Wendy and Sergeant Garry Hopwood from the local police station – she had informed them out of courtesy, not wanting to encroach on the station’s area of operation – drew up outside the address that Meredith Temple said had been operating as a brothel.
Entering a brothel came with certain risks, and too many brothels, even those close to Challis Street, were involved in the selling of illegal drugs.
It was intended to be low-key, just the two sergeants, but Hopwood's senior, a bully of a man with pudgy hands, a tie off-centre, and perspiring, had been adamant. ‘No going in there unless all bases are covered,’ he had said.
He was right, Wendy knew, and Detective Inspector Con Waverton had a good reputation, even if he was unpopular.
At the rear of the premises, a three-storey terrace, two uniforms waited for those who’d be dashing out, not wanting to be caught, their names to be taken.
It was ten in the evening, the busiest time of the day.
Meredith Temple had been at Challis Street from two in the afternoon until six in the evening. During that time, she had given a statement, scanned through hundreds of photos of women of the night. Apart from a couple of women, she hadn’t been able to identify anyone, other than to say that Eastern European women, mainly from Ukraine, were flooding in, and some of them were underage, and that the Asians were being pushed out to the more disreputable premises.
Larry had the address of a third English woman that had been at the brothel. He intended to visit her.
Waverton stood away from the front of the brothel, not far from a pub. Wendy knew where he would be heading afterwards, successful or not.
Garry Hopwood knocked at the door, showed his warrant card; Wendy showing hers as well.
‘What do you want?’ an elderly woman said. Her hair was piled high and dyed a shade of blue. She wore a frilled white blouse, a short blue skirt and tottered on stiletto heels.
‘Running a brothel’s illegal,’ Hopwood said.
Waverton should have taken the lead, which made Wendy think that the man was willing to take a backhander to look the other way, a freebie at a house of ill repute.
Once the murders had been solved, she’d pass on her suspicions to her DCI. She wasn’t at the house to make arrests, only to find out who the dead woman was and where Analyn was.
‘So’s lying to the police,’ Wendy said. She went in the door, walking to the end of the long hallway, ensuring the back door was locked, removing the key.
There was no doubt what was going on in the building. There was a distinct rustling upstairs, the men with their peccadilloes exposed, their marriages about to blow asunder.
‘I’ve lived here for twelve years, never a complaint,’ the woman said. It wasn’t true; Wendy had checked.
A man dashed out from a room to the left and made for the back door. He didn’t get far, turning on the spot, aiming to get past the three standing in his way. ‘I can’t be
